Notes

INTROSUBJECTIVITY AND TRANSCENDENTAL

IDEALISM

JAMES RICHARD MENSCH

INTRODUCTION

This book concerns a claim which occupied Husserl for the last decade of his

life. Having adopted transcendental idealism, he became increasingly aware of the

problem it raised with regard to intersubjectivity. How, within the idealistic standpoint,

do I acknowledge the independent existence of Others -- of fellow subjects? Confronted

with the difficulties of such acknowledgement, Husserl did not abandon this standpoint.

Rather, he sought their solution by attempting to deepen the sense of the idealism which

he developed. The claim which he tirelessly sought to justify was that the very idealism

which raised such difficulties, when pursued to the end, provided their solution. Without

going into details, we can say that this solution rests upon the notion of a "primal ego" or,

as he also calls it, a "primal subjectivity" or "life." In Eugen Fink's words, this primal

subjectivity is "neither one nor many, neither factual nor essential." It is none of these

because it is the ground of such qualities. As such, it exists as prior to the distinction

between an individual's "primordial subjectivity and the subjectivity of other monads." It

exists as the pre-individual ground of the relations between this individual and other

monads.1 Thus, for Husserl, the claim that transcendental idealism can solve on its own

the problem of the acknowledgement of Others actually involves a further claim:

Transcendental idealism ultimately uncovers this prior, "primordial" subjectivity when it

pursues its own method to the end. This method, that of the phenomenological
 Notes
2

reduction, allows it to ground our acts of acknowledging Others by uncovering the

ground of all our relations to Others.

§1. A First Description of Transcendental Idealism.

To clarify the above, we need a definition of transcendental idealism. It is only

when we can grasp its notion that we can see how such idealism raises the problem of

intersubjectivity -- how, in fact, it gives the problem its special, phenomenological

character. A preliminary definition of transcendental idealism can be provided by citing

Roman Ingarten. As the latter observes, "The controversy between realists and idealists

concerning the existence of the real world, is not about the question of whether the real

world, the material world in particular, exists in general ..." Both camps acknowledge

such existence. The controversy is rather "about the mode of the world's existence and

what its existential relation is to the acts of consciousness in which objects belonging to

the world are cognized" (On the Motives which led Husserl to Transcendental Idealism,

trans. A. Hannibalsson, Phaenomenenologica, No. 64, The Hague, 1975, p. 5). For the

realist, this mode is such that the objects of the world are regarded as having their own

inherent qualities. An object independently possesses an essence made up of such

qualities. We, thus, have a dependence of knowing on being. It is, the realist claims,

precisely because an object exists with such and such qualities, that it can be known as

such.2 For the idealist the reverse is the case. To borrow a word from Husserl, the

idealist protests against the realist's "absolutization" of the world (See Ideen I, ed. W.

Biemel, Husseriana III, The Hague, 1950, p. 135). This protest signifies that the world's

existence -- rather than being prior to consciousness in the sense that consciousness

depends upon it in order to know -- is, in fact, an existence posterior to, indeed,

dependent upon consciousness. As Ingarden writes, the protest signifies "that the

existence, which is only 'for' the conscious subject and does not possess its own essence,
 Notes
3

is not to be considered as a being 'in itself' which is endowed with its own effective

essence" (On the Motives ..., ed. cit., p. 5). Transcendental idealism, then, is a doctrine

that makes knowing prior to being. Its denial of being in itself is a denial that being by

itself possesses an esence or nature, one which consciousness must seek out as belonging

to an independently existing entity.

The above does not mean that the idealist assumes that the entity has no essence,

no set of qualities which distinguish it from other objects. To avoid a possible

misunderstanding of Husserl's position, we must add a certain qualification to

Ingarden's account. We have to distinguish between an object's having an essence "in

itself" in the sense of this essence's being inherent -- i.e., designating the type of being

that the object itself is -- and the object's having this essence "by itself." The

controversy between the realist and the idealist involves the latter. As we shall see,

Husserl believes that even in the idealistic standpoint one can maintain that one knows

an object as it is "in itself." His disagreement with the realist concerns the explanation

of such knowledge. Is it to be understood in terms of the dependence of knowing on

the object "itself" or in terms of the dependence of the latter on knowing? Husserl opts

for the second.

To put this position in a somewhat sharper focus, we can note that it involves

Husserl's notion of the presumptiveness of the thing, i.e., the presumptiveness of both its

existence and essence. The notion has as one of its conditions Husserl's characterization

of a thing's givenness. He writes: "... the givenness of the thing is not just givenness

through perspectives, but rather always and necessarily presumptive givenness; and this,

with respect to that point of the present in which the thing is bodily given as existing in

the now and existing in a certain way [i.e., with a certain essence]. Whatever is given

with respect to it could be a false pretention. It depends upon the continuance of the

harmonious perceptions" ("Beilage XIII," Ideen I, Biemel ed., p. 398). Now, this
 Notes
4

presumptiveness of the givenness to consciousness of the thing does not per se make the

thing itself presumptive. We must add a second condition. This is the doctrine of

transcendental idealism that being depends upon knowing or -- to speak more precisely --

its position that an object's being depends upon its being-given to consciousness. At this

point, we can assert with Husserl that "the being of the world ... exists only as the unity

of the totality of appearances that continue to validate themselves" ("Beilage XIII," Erste

Philosophie, 1923/24, Zweiter: Teil: Theorie der phänomenologische Reduktion,

hereafter cited as EP II, ed. R. Boehm, Husserliana VIII, The Hague, 1959, p. 404, italics

added). Indeed, it exists only so long as such validation occurs -- i.e., so long as the

appearances continue to give us the unity we call the world (See EP II, Boehm ed., p.

50).3 For the realist, on the contrary, the presumptiveness of givenness affects neither

the existence nor the essence of the world of things. These, as absolute, are independent

of consciousness. They have, by themselves, their being and their inherent natures. The

presumptiveness of the givenness of the thing is, thus, for the realist only the

presumptiveness of consciousness as it attempts to reach the latter. It is the

presumptiveness of consciousness as a knower, not that of the being which consciousness

attempts to know.

§2. The Problem of Positing Subjective Being.

A first definition of the problem of intersubjectivity is given by Husserl in the

following words. It is, "... how, in the attitude of the reduction, other egos -- egos not as

merely worldly phenomena but as other transcendental egos -- could become positable as

existing and, thus, could become equally legitimate themes of a phenomenological

egology" (Cartesianische Meditationen, hereafter cited as CM, ed. S. Strasser, 2nd ed.,

Husserliana I, The Hague, 1963, p. 117). Viewed in isolation, the problem appears to be

one of description. What it requires for its solution seems to be a description of the
 Notes
5

"how" of my recognition of Others -- i.e., of my positing them as subjects.

Phenomenologically, this means a description of their givenness to me. It signifies both

an account of their appearances and an account of my actions in positing them as the

unities of such appearances. Once, however, we enter the context of transcendental

idealism, this straightforward problem undergoes a transformation. The problem is no

longer one of mere description but rather of the nature of the subject being described.

To see this, we must observe that the Other is a "unity of appearance" in a

twofold sense. He is such as an object -- i.e., as part of the "merely worldly phenomena"

as they appear to me. Here, like every other spatial-temporal object, he is, in his bodily

presence, the unity of the appearances I have of him. Yet, as a subject -- i.e., as

transcendental -- he is not the unity of appearances which I grasp but rather that of the

appearances which he himself experiences. He is their unity as their center or, as Husserl

puts it, as the "0 point" of their reference. This is the point out of which he himself

posits objects as existing -- i.e., as unities of apperances for himself. Given this

transcendental sense of the Other as a unity of appearances, I cannot reduce his being to

his being known or being given to me. I cannot because he himself is an embodiment of

this priority of knowing to being. The priority, in other words, points to him in his own

knowing and positing. Thus, to posit him as a transcendental unity of appearances, "what

I must obtain is the Other," as Sartre expresses it, "not as I obtain knowledge of him, but

as he obtains knowledge of himself ..." (Being and Nothingness, trans. H. Barnes, New

York: Washington Square Press, 1968, p. 317, italics added). I obtain knowledge of him

as an objective unity of appearances. He obtains knowledge of himself as a subjective

unity -- i.e., as a center or, as Husserl also writes, as an "ego pole" of the appearances

that make up his flowing stream of consciousness.

Given this distinction and given the fact that we do posit others with apparent

certainty, the question arises concerning the level of being on which such positing occurs.
 Notes
6

If, with Husserl, we take up the stance of transcendental idealism, this is not the level of

objective or "transcendent" being. It is not, in other words, the level of the being that is

ob-jective (Gegen-ständlich) in the sense that it "stands-against" us, declaring itself to be

"transcendent" to us. Such being, according to transcendental idealism, is reduced to its

being known by us. The Other, however, is not just something known by us; he is a

knower. He is not just something standing against a subject; he is the center or the pole

against which things stand. The level of being on which the Other "could become

positable as existing" is, thus, one radically other than that of the objective being whose

absolutization transcendental idealism denies. It is, as we shall see, a level which escapes

from all the characterizations of individuality and plurality which are appropriate to

objective being.

§3. The Motivations for Performing the Reduction.

For Husserl, as we cited him, the problem of Others is that of positing their

existence "in the attitude of the reduction." It is only within this attitude that Others can

"become equally legitimate themes of a phenomenological egology." Outside of the

reduction, their existence is not a legitimate theme for phenomenology. Thus, these

remarks signify that for a phenomenologist, the reduction must be taken as the method

which gives him his "legitimate" access to Others. It is his method of access to the level

of being which is appropriate to them. As such, the "attitude of the reduction" is crucial

to the problem of Others. It is what gives this problem its special phenomenological

significance.

We must, then, examine the reduction's character. Yet, before we consider its

performance and the transcendental idealism which springs from this performance, we

must first inquire into the motivations which form the context for its "attitude". Here,

our questions are: What led Husserl to propose it in the first place? What are the
 Notes
7

problems which its performance is intended to solve? Afterwards, we shall have to ask

how far the resulting idealism squares with such motivations.

A. The Priority of the Epistemological Standpoint

For Husserl the motivations for performing the reduction are epistemological.

They have to do with the conditions for the possibility of knowledge. In his view, such

conditions must first be secured before we can engage in a metaphysical inquiry into the

nature of being. What we have, then, is the thought that epistemology must take

precedence over metaphysics. In Husserl's words: "Epistemology must not be taken as a

discipline which follows metaphysics or even coincides with it; on the contrary, it

precedes it as it does psychology and every other discipline" (Logische Untersuchungen,

hereafter referred to as LU, 5th ed., 3 Vols, Tübingen, 1968, I, 224). As he elsewhere

insists: "Epistemology is situated before all empirical theory; it thus precedes all

explanatory sciences of the real -- i.e., physical science on the one hand and psychology

on the other -- and naturally it precedes all metaphysics" (LU, Tüb. ed., II/2, 21). This

precedence is to be taken in the strong sense of the term. It signifies the independence of

epistemology from all other sciences in its examining the conditions for the possibility of

knowledge; it also signifies that such conditions are to be seen as determinative with

regard to the postulates and claims of the particular explanatory sciences.

We cannot here enter into a complete account of the arguments Husserl gives for

this twofold precedence of epistemology. 4 Let us simply state their main theme: A self-

undermining skepticism arises whenever we violate this precedence. This can be

expressed in terms of the demand that arises once we acknowledge this precendence --

i.e., acknowledge the independence and priority of the epistemological (or knowing)

relation: Such a relation must set its own standards for its validity. Thus, if it involves

standards, such as those for logical consistency, they must be considered as inherently
 Notes
8

given with this relation in the sense of their springing from its very nature. This means

that the justification of such standards cannot be externally provided, but rather must be

made in terms of this nature. This demand follows directly from the notion of knowing.

If knowing cannot provide its own standards, it cannot justify them. At this point, it

cannot even justify itself as knowing. It cannot say that when it follows its standards, the

result is knowledge. Given this and given that epistemology is the science of the inherent

nature of the knowing relation, the violation of the precedence of epistemology can be

expressed as follows: It occurs whenever we take some other science and assert that the

relations it studies are external to those of knowing and, in fact, are determinative of

these latter insofar as they express standards for knowing.

An example Husserl gives will clarify this. The science of evolution studies the

relations involved in the struggle for existence and natural selection. What happens

when we consider such relations as determinative of logical relations, i.e., those which

set the standards for the logical consistency of knowledge? For Husserl, this reversal

of epistemology's precedence immediately occasions a skepticism about such

standards. As he writes:

Thoughts of a biological order intrude. We are reminded of the modern theory of

evolution according to which man has evolved through natural selection in the struggle
for existence and, with man, his intellect has also naturally evolved and, with his
intellect, also all of its characteristic forms -- in particular, the logical forms.
Accordingly, is it not the case that the logical forms and laws express the accidental
peculiarity of the human species, a species which could have been different and will be
different in the course of future evolution? Cognition, therefore, is doubtless only human
cognition. It is something bound up with human intellectual forms, something incapable
of reaching the nature of things themselves, of reaching the things in themselves (Die
Idee der Phänomenologie, 2nd ed., ed. W. Biemel, Husserliana II, 1973, p. 21).
 Notes
9

That such skepticism is ultimately self-undermining can be seen by the fact that it calls

into question the very theory upon which it is based. Evolution is not just a descriptive

account. It is, concretely regarded, a theory based on logical inference. If the objective

validity of such inference is called into question, then so is the theory itself. To avoid

this fate, the theory must, at least in its own case, assume the independence and priority

of the knowing relationship. It does this whenever it asserts that its arguments and

inferences do reach the things themselves -- and this without regard to the evolutionary

considerations undermining their validity.

For Husserl, the argument for the precedence of epistemology is perfectly

general. It is meant to apply not just to all the particular sciences with regard to their

claims "concerning the possibility of knowledge (its possible validity)," but also to "the

being that is cognized by the sciences" (Idee der Phän., Biemel ed., p. 22). As such, it

applies to metaphysics, defined as "a science of being in an absolute sense" (Ibid., p. 23).

Specifically, this means that such a science cannot make being unknowable; it cannot, if

it wishes to justify itself as knowledge, give being a nature which conflicts with the

possibility of knowing this nature. In this regard, metaphysics is in the same position as

any of the particular sciences. Rather than being considered as independent, it must, to

claim the status of science -- i.e., of scientia or knowledge -- be considered as dependent,

indeed, as determined by the epistemological criteria for knowledge. Husserl, thus,

writes, "This science, which we call metaphysics grows out of a 'critique' of natural

cognition ..." (Ibid.). In other words, instead of being considered as independent, "the

possibility of metaphysics, of a science of being in an absolute and ultimate sense, is

obviously dependent on the success of this science [of epistemology]" (Ibid., p. 34).

To draw a motivation from this twofold precedence of epistemology to

metaphysics, we note that it implies the phenomenological reduction in two of its

apparently contradictory qualities. The reduction begins with the action of "bracketing"
 Notes
10

all assertions concerning being. We suspend our judgments with regard to their validity.

But then, "in the attitude of the reduction", we go on to discuss the nature of being and to

lay down standards of what can count for us as being or actual existence. The

inconsistency here is only apparent. Once we follow Husserl and identify

phenomenology and epistemology, the above simply follows from their precedence.

Thus, as independent, epistemology is naturally "presuppositionless." Its precedence

over metaphysics means that it cannot presuppose the assertions of the particular sciences

about the nature of being. Such assertions must, therefore, be bracketed. This

presuppositionlessness does not, however, signify a silence on the nature of being. As

determining, epistemology does and indeed must determine the principles of being

emerging from its "'critique' of cognition." A general sense of this determination is given

in the Investigations when Husserl considers the "doubt whether the actual course of the

world, the real structure of the world in itself, could conflict with the forms of thought."

Given the determining priority of epistemology, such conflict is impossible. This

follows because the priority signifies "... that a correlation to perceivability, intuitibility,

meanability and knowability is inseparable from the sense of being in general ..." (LU,

Tüb. ed., II/2, 201).5

B. The Task of Securing the Possibility of Objectively Valid Knowledge

To see more clearly the motivation which leads to the performance of the

reduction, we must translate Husserl's insistence on the priority of epistemology into a

task. By definition, the epistemological relation is that of knowing. In the Logical

Investigations, knowing is taken in the strong, objective sense of the term. This means

that it is understood as reaching the object as it is "in itself" -- i.e., the object in its own

qualities or nature (See LU Tüb. ed., II/1, 90). Now, for Husserl, to deny the priority of

the epistemological relation is to deny the possibility of knowledge in this sense. Such
 Notes
11

knowledge, we have seen him argue, is impossible when the epistemological or knowing

relation is taken as posterior -- i.e., as dependent on some other, external relation such as

that of natural selection. Logically, this means that the possibility of objectively valid

knowledge implies the priority of the epistemological relation. Husserl's insistence on

such priority, thus, translates itself into the task of securing the possibility of the

knowledge which implies this priority.

This task is one which motivates Husserl's work throughout his career. In the

Logical Investigations, which generally takes a "realist" stance, Husserl writes that his

goal is that of answering "the cardinal question of epistemology, the question of the

objectivity of knowledge." For Husserl, his other questions -- e.g., that of the theoretical

basis of logic and that of the relation of logic to psychology -- "essentially coincide" with

this "cardinal question" (LU, Tüb. ed., I, 8). Given that the task is directed to the

securing of the priority of epistemology, the inquiry here is not so much whether such

knowledge can exist but, more importantly, how it can. It is an inquiry into the

conditions for the possibility of objective knowledge (See LU, "Prologomena," §65-§66).

The same motivation is present when Husserl, through the method of the reduction,

adopts the stance of transcendental idealism. Such idealism does not rule out our

knowing the object as it is in itself, i.e., having objective knowledge in this sense.

Indeed, when Husserl defends his adoption of this stance, he describes his work as the

continuance of his search for the conditions of the possibility of such knowledge. He

writes:

... it simply concerns a motivated path which, starting from the problem of the possibility
of objective knowledge, wins the necessary insight that the very sense of this problem
leads back to the pure ego existing in and for itself, the insight that this ego, as a
presupposition for knowledge of the world, cannot be and cannot remain presupposd as a
worldly being, the insight therefore that this ego must, through the phenomenological
 Notes
12
reduction and the epoché with respect to the being-for-me of the world, be brought, to
transcendental purity ("Nachwort," Ideen III, ed. M. Biemel, Husserliana V, The Hague,
1971, p. 150).

We discussed in an earlier work of ours the technical, Husserlian sense of the

concepts of "motivation" and "motivated path" (see The Question of Being in Husserl's

Logical Investigations, Phaenomenologica, No. 81, The Hague, 1981, pp. 3-6). Here, we

can content ourselves with pointing out the salient features of the latter. It is, we can say,

an intellectual path motivated by the attempt to answer a philosophical question -- in this

case that of the "possibility of objective knowledge." If an answer or solution is

completely satisfactory, the path should naturally come to an end. If, however, the

solution that is proposed is only partial, if, when worked out, it raises new problems with

respect to the original motivation, the path must continue. With this, we must emphasize

that the motivation involves a question and is not, itself, a solution. As such, it

determines the problems that may arise in terms of a solution, but it does not directly

determine the nature of the response to these problems.

To make this description concrete, let us apply it to the determination of

metaphysics by epistemology. The relation of such determination to Husserl's guiding

motivation should be clear: The metaphysical or ontological conditions for the

possibility of objective knowledge state what being must be if it is to be objectively

knowable. They thus state the conditions implying the priority of epistemology, the

conditions, in fact, demanded by this priority. Now, in the Investigations, the

knowability of being is seen as requiring its division into the categories of real and ideal

-- i.e., into "being as species and being as individual" (LU, Tüb. ed., II/1, 125). To the

former belong all the universal "ideas or species," among which are counted all the

purely formal truths of logic and mathematics. Their being is a-temporal or unchanging
 Notes
13

and, hence, is not subject to causal determination. To the latter category belong all

individual temporal beings, including the being of the individual, judging subject (See

Ibid., II/1, 123). The very temporality of real being is taken by Husserl as sufficient to

place it within the nexus of causality.6 From such a division, the following position on

knowing emerges. In Husserl's words, we assert: "My judging 2 x 2 = 4 is certainly

causally determined but not the truth that 2 x 2 = 4" (LU, Tüb. ed., I, 119).

The problem that this solution gives rise to with regard to the guiding motivation

is how a causally determined consciousness could ever be in a position to grasp an ideal

objective truth. Such a consciousness, as Husserl later realized, would think the object,

not as it is "in itself," but as it had been causally determined to think it. This

determination would include a number of contingent factors -- for example, those of

biological evolution mentioned above. The account of the Investigations is, then, that of

a halfway house. It is one where, as De Boer puts it, "Husserl overcomes the

'naturalization of the ideas,' but not yet the naturalization of consciousness'"

("Zusammenfassung," De Ontwikkelingsgang in het Denken van Husserl, Assen, 1966,

p. 589). One feature of this shortfall is the fact that in the Investigations, both the real

and the ideal are taken as aspects of objective being. The doctrine of this work is that the

"universal sense of being" is equivalent to "that of object in general" (LU, Tüb. ed., II/1,

125). The subject, however, is not an object, not something "standing against" a knower.

As mentioned above, he is that "against which" objects stand when they are grasped and

known. A subject, then, is a "presupposition for knowledge of the world," since his

being as a knower is required for things to have -- apart from any merely "bodily"

presence things may have to one another -- an epistemological presence which results in

their being known. Otherwise put: It is not as real or ideal that a subject is that-in-

relation-to-which things become objectively known. Neither category is sufficient to

 Notes
14

specify him as a knower. Indeed, he is missed entirely by such categories insofar as they

limit themselves to the sense of being an object.

The problem that arises out of the solution of the Investigations is that of finding

a category of being appropriate to the subject, one which accounts for the possibility of

his possessing objective knowledge. The motivated response of transcendental idealism

to this difficulty is to consider the subject in terms of a third category of being -- that of

the irreal. Husserl thus writes at the beginning of the Ideen, "It will become evident that

the concept of reality is in need of a fundamental limitation by virtue of which a

distinction must be made between real being and individual, simply temporal being"

("Einleitung," Ideen I, Biemel ed., p. 7). 7 The individual, temporal being which is not

real, but rather irreal, is that of the experiences of consciousness. Irreality has for

Husserl a double significance. It signifies that such experiences are not subject to the

causal determination which characterizes real being. It also signifies that the experiences

of consciousness are outside of the "actual" or real world which defines its entities

through their causal relations. The assertion about the limitation of real being is, thus,

also an assertion "that all transcendentally purified 'experiences' are irrealities placed

outside of all ordering in the 'actual world'" (Ibid.). This means, as Husserl elsewhere

writes:

When we perform the transcendental-phenomenological reduction -- that

transformation of the natural and internal-psychological attitude by virtue of
which this attitude becomes transcendental -- psychological subjectivity loses that
which gives it the value of something real in the naively experienced, pre-given
world; it loses its sense of being a soul of an animal organism which exists in a
pre-given, spatial-temporal nature" ("Nachwort," Biemel ed., p. 145).

As such, it loses its sense of being naturally (causally) determined by this spatial-

temporal nature. It becomes, as Husserl says, "the transcendental ego -- i.e., the ego
 Notes
15

considered as absolute in itself and as existing for itself 'before' all worldly being which,

itself, first comes to have the status of being within this ego" (Ibid, p. 146).

In summary, the "motivated path" which leads to transcendental idealism -- and,

hence, to the reduction -- has essentially two stages. From the desire to avoid a self-

defeating skepticism, Husserl is motivated to insist upon the absolute priority of

epistemology. Such insistence transforms itself into the task of securing the possibility

of objective knowledge. From this, there arises the second stage. It occurs once we see

that this possibility is undermined as long as we define the knowing (or subject-object)

relation in terms of the causality which defines real being. There, thus, arises the

motivation, first, to remove the formal objects of our knowledge -- the formal truths of

logic and mathematics -- from the category of real, causally determined being. Such

truths are declared to be ideal, non-temporal objects. When this proves insufficient, the

temporal subject is also removed from the category of real being. Since temporality is

inherent in his nature, he cannot be placed in the category of the ideal. Rather he is taken

entirely out of the division of objective being. He is considered irreal which means that

as a "transcendental ego" he is considered to be a phenomenologically reduced subject.

§4. The Reduction.

The nature of this reduction can be seen by looking at the method by which

Husserl makes the subject irreal or non-worldly -- i.e., makes it stand "before" the

objective world as its "presupposition." The method is, as Husserl says, that of the

"transcendental-phenomenological reduction." As first noted by Theodor Celms, the

reduction has two senses. It is "a leading back of every objectively (transcendentally)

directed consideration into a consideration of the corresponding modes of

consciousness." It is also "the leading back of objective (transcendent) being to the being

of the corresponding modes of consciousness" (Der phänomenologische Idealismus

 Notes
16

Husserls, Riga, 1928, p. 309). In its first sense, it signifies a reduction of our

consideration of an object to a consideration of the experiences and experiential

connections through which the object is given to consciousness. As Celms writes, the

second sense signifies "the denial of any positing of what is reduced" -- i.e., objective,

transcendent being -- "as absolute." It is , positively regarded, "the inclusion of the sense

of the being of the reduced in the sense of being of the basis to which it is reduced" --

such basis being the just mentioned experiences and their connections in consciousness

(Ibid., p. 311). Both senses, as we shall now see, are required by the twofold priority of

epistemology.

Taken in its most general sense, the phenomenological reduction, as its name

implies, is a method of reducing to phenomena. In its first sense, what is to be so

reduced is the consideration of objective being. Such consideration is expressed in an

objective judgment or -- to be more precise -- the judgment's thesis or claim about such

being. Initially, then, a thesis of judgment -- e.g., the thesis that one is perceiving a

spatial-temporal object -- is to be reduced to the phenomena and connections of

phenomena which form its evidential basis. In this case, the evidence is the presence of

perceptual contents which are perspectivally arranged -- i.e., those contents which show

first one side and then another of the object. Now, the method by which this is

accomplished is, for Husserl, essentially that of suspension or epoché. I suspend the

thesis of my judgment, i.e., my belief in its validity, in order to free myself to regard

with unprejudiced eyes the phenomena which lead me to this belief.

The logical reason for this suspension is intimately tied to its epistemological

motivation. Logically, one must perform the epoché in order to avoid the fallacy of the

petitio principii. This means that one cannot include the validity of a thesis as part of the

evidence brought forward for this validity. If one did, one would "beg a principle" and

assume what one was trying to evidentially validate. Thus, to avoid this, one must
 Notes
17

suspend one's belief in this validity; one must "bracket," as Husserl says, the claims of

the judgments under consideration. When we universally apply this suspension to all the

claims of the particular sciences about the nature of being, we have satisfied the first of

the demands Husserl makes for the absolute priority of epistemology. Such priority

involves the absolute independence of epistemology in its investigations of the conditions

for knowledge. This independence, as we have stressed, requires that epistemology

cannot presuppose any of the assertions of the paticular sciences. It must, as

presuppositionless, suspend its belief in these assertions in order to independently

investigate their epistemological foundations -- i.e., the evidence that gives them their

claim to be items of knowledge.

As opposed to the first sense of the reduction, which implies restraint to the point

of silence with regard to the nature of being, the second does involve a thesis about this

nature. It is that objective or transcendent being -- including the being of the natural,

spatial-temporal world -- is nothing outside of the experiences of consciousness. Such

being, as Husserl writes, is "according to its sense merely intentional being. ... It is a

being that consciousness posits in its experiences ... beyond this, however, it is nothing at

all or, more precisely, for this being a notion of a beyond is a contradictory one" (Ideen I,

Biemel ed., p. 117). In other words, "the existence of nature is only as constituting itself

in the actual connections of consciousness" (Ibid., p. 121). What such assertions signify

is that the being of any existent thing, when reduced to its essential conditions, is only the

being of the experiences and connections of experiences which allow of its positing. The

ontological claim of the second sense of the reduction is, then, "... that the existence

(Dasein) of the thing itself, the object of experience, is inseparably implicit in this system

of transcendental connections [between experiences] and that without such connections,

it would, thus, be unthinkable and obviously a nothing" (EP II, Boehm ed., p. 404).
 Notes
18

We can clarify this claim by noting how it involves the irreality of consciousness

in its experiences. According to the above, an object is posited through the connections

obtaining between experiences. Its existence as a thing itself is "inseparably implicit" in

such connections. Thus, a real spatial-temporal object is posited when our experiences

are connected so as to form a perspectival series. Its existence necessarily implies the

series which exhibits first one side and then another of an entity. Now as Husserl writes,

"an experience does not thus appear perspectivally" (Ideen I, Biemel ed., p. 97). It

cannot since such appearing involves an ordering of experiences and not just an

individual experience by itself. By itself, then, it must be considered as irreal. The

experience has not the appearing which would allow us to posit it as real or spatial-

temporal. By virtue of this it is not subject to causality since causal relations, as

involving stretches of time and successive spatial locations, require spatial-temporal

objects as their subjects. Here, in fact, we can say that the individual experiences are

"before" all such objects insofar as it is through them or, rather, through their

connections that the ongoing experience of the object, indeed, its very being for us,

becomes possible.

With this, we return to the idealism we initially defined. The reduction, taken in

its second sense, reduces being to being known. The possibility of a being is, in other

words, reduced to that of the connections through which it is experienced and known.

Such a reduction is meant to satisfy the second of the requirements for the absolute

priority of epistemology. This is that the relationship of knowing is to be considered as

determinative of the nature of being. The determination here is direct: Being is, in its

conditions, reduced to its being-given to consciousness. This means that the experiences

by which we know are, in their connections, determinative of the very being of the

known.
 Notes
19

The term Husserl uses for such determination is "constitution." Constitution is a

notion implicit in the reduction. It is, in fact, the reverse of our action in performing the

reduction. In the reduction, we move from the founded to the founding -- i.e., to the

phenomena through whose connections the founded appears. If these founding

phenomena owe their own appearing to the connections occurring between even lower

level phenomena, the reduction can be exercised again. It can be employed on such

lower level phenomena -- i.e., on the belief of their own independent or "original"

givenness -- to uncover an even more primitive, founding layer. Stage by stage, then, the

action of the reduction is both a suspension of belief and an uncovering of founding

connections and phenomena. One suspends one's belief in the unconditional or original

givenness of a layer of phenomena. With this, one focuses on the lower level phenomena

and the connections which condition the previous layer's givenness. Now, constitution,

as the reverse of this, is the action of founding. It is the action of connecting phenomena

and of the "positing" belief in the unity that appears through such connections. This

synthetic process, at least in its initial stages, is a passive one; it is unconsciously

performed. By contrast, the reduction which attempts by analysis to uncover the work of

constitution is, by definition, a self-conscious effort.

The hidden, unconscious process which is uncovered is, according to the first

sense of the reduction, that by which we know being. According to the second, it is that

by virtue of which being is. The constitution which the reduction uncovers is, then, the

accomplishment of knowing by virtue of which being is. Husserl therefore writes:

Genuine epistemology is, according, only possible (sinnvoll) as transcendental-

phenomenological epistemology which, instead of dealing with contradictory inferences
which lead from a supposed immanence to a supposed transcendence -- that of some
undetermined "thing-in-itself" which is allegedly unknowable in principle -- has to do
exclusively with the systematic explanation of the accomplishment of knowing, an
 Notes
20
explanation in which this becomes thoroughly understandable as an intentional
accomplishment. Precisely thereby, every sort of being itself (Seiendes selbst), be it real
or ideal, becomes understandable as a constituted product (Gebilde) of transcendental
subjectivity, a product that is constituted in just such an accomplishment [of knowing].
This sort of understanding is the highest form of rationality (CM, Strasser ed., p. 118).

The claim of rationality made here refers, we can say, to the epistemological motivation

for performing the reduction. This is that of knowing being as it is "in itself." Such

knowledge is, apparently, at once secured if the action by which we know the sense of

being is productive of the being which bears this sense. The objectivity of knowledge

and, hence, the priority of "genuine epistemology" is, in other words, here secured by the

doctrine that "every conceivable sense, every conceivable being, whether the latter be

called immanent or transcendent, falls within the realm of transcendental subjectivity as

that which constitutes both sense and being (Ibid, p. 117).

§5. The Solipsistic Limitation.

Does the idealism expressed in these last remarks square with the motives for

performing the reduction? What precisely is the difficulty which it raises with regard

to our acknowledgement of Others? Such questions, as we shall now see, are only

apparently distinct.

As we wrote in discussing the notion of a motivated path, such a path should end

if a solution put forward satisfies its original motivation. If, however, in the working out

of this solution, new problems arise with regard to the original motivation, the path must

continue. Now, the problem that does arise in working out the above solution concerns

the dual character of the knowledge which claims to get the object "in itself." Such

knowledge is knowledge which agrees with the inherent content of the object. Yet it is

also a knowledge whose content is necessarily and universally present in all judgments
 Notes
21

concerning the object -- i.e., concerning some well defined feature or aspect of the

object. As Kant points out, these two are logically equivalent. The objective validity of

a content of knowledge (in the sense of its agreement with the object's inherent content)

analytically implies the necessary universality of such content in all valid judgments

concerning the object. One can also reverse this inference. In Kant's words, the first

implies the second "... because when a judgment agrees with the object, all judgments

concerning the object must agree with each other." In other words, insofar as each

judgment states the same thing with regard to the object, each has the same content.

Their agreement with the object is their universal mutual agreement. By parity of

reasoning, the second implies the first, for otherwise, "... there would be no reason why

other judgments would necessarily have to agree with mine, if it were not the unity of the

object to which they all refer and with which they all agree and, for that reason, must

agree among themselves" ("Prologomena," §18, in Kants gesammelte Schriften, 23 Vols.,

Berlin, 1910-55, IV, 298, italics added).8

If, with Husserl, we accept this equivalence, we can see how, in Fink's words, we

have formulated "... the objectivity of objects by the character -- if one will -- of

intersubjectivity." The formulation is such "that one cannot establish between objectivity

and intersubjectivity a relationship such that one or the other is prior; rather, objectivity

and intersubjectivity are indeed co-original" ("Discussion--Comments by Eugen Fink on

Alfred Schutz's Essay, 'The Problem of Transcendental Intersubjectivity in Husserl,'" in

Alfred Schutz, Collected Papers III, ed. I. Schutz, Phaenomenologica, No. 22, The

Hague, 1966, p. 86). Their co-originality springs from the equivalence of objective and

universal validity and from the fact that the latter, as "validity for everyone," includes the

notion of Others as subjects for whom a given content of judgment is valid. For Husserl,

such co-originality signifies that the objective world is, by definition, an intersubjective

world. He writes: "Considered as objective, the sense of the being of the world and, in
 Notes
22

particular, the sense of nature includes ... thereness-for-everyone, thereness as always co-

intended by us whenever we speak of objective actuality" (CM, Strasser ed., p. 124,

italics added). What we have, in fact, is an equivalence between the two "worlds," since

for Husserl, the intersubjective world is also an objective world. It is "a world for

everyone, accessible to everyone in its objects" (Ibid, p. 123, italics added).

What this signifies with regard to satisfying the guiding motivation is readily

apparent. If objectively valid knowledge does imply Others, then the securing of its

possibility must also embrace the possibility of Others. Can transcendental idealism

secure this latter possibility? The question concerns what Husserl calls its "solipsistic

limitation." The thought of such a limitation raises anew the "cardinal question" of the

objectivity of knowledge. The focus of the question is now on the relation between the

individual subject which constitutes (and, hence, knows) and the intersubjective

character of objective knowledge. As Husserl writes in 1920 on the edge of a

manuscript:

But the most difficult questions are not considered here: What characterizes subjective
relativity and mathematical objectivity within the solipsistic limitation as opposed to such
relativity and objectivity within intersubjectivity? How does logical universality obtain
its connection to validity for "every judging subject without exception"? Does not also
every "judgment of perception," indeed, every "solipsistic" judgment, have its "logical"
validity? Thus, the problem is that of the origin of the idea of a logic which is valid for
everyone and, hence, that of the idea of a universal science (Ms. B IV 12, p. 10, italics
added).

This "solipsistic limitation" arises because the phenomenological reduction is

conceived as a reduction to my experiences and connections. It is these that serve as the

evidential basis for the validity of my judgments. In the second sense of the reduction, it

is from these that I am understood as positing both the sense and being of the world. The
 Notes
23

problem of the "origin" engendered by this is that objective validity, as implying other

knowers, implies as well their experiences and connections. In other words, if, as the

reduction demands, validity is to be judged by direct perceptual evidence of the

phenomena, then objective validity, as validity both for myself and Others, seems to

include a range of evidence that is not directly available to me. This non-availability is

simply a function of the fact that I cannot see through a fellow subject's eyes; I cannot

directly intuit the phenomena that form the basis of his assertions.

Husserl puts this difficulty in the following way. It concerns

... the objection by which we first let ourselves be guided, the objection against our
phenomenology insofar as it claims to be transcendental philosophy and, thus, claims to
solve the problems of the possibility of objective knowledge. It is that it is incapable of
this, beginning as it does with the transcendental ego of the phenomenological reduction
and being restricted to this ego. Without wishing to admit it, it falls into transcendental
solipsism; and the whole step leading to other subjectivity and to genuine objectivity is
only possible through an unconfessed metaphysics, through a secret adoption of the
Leibnizian tradition (CM, Strasser ed., p. 174).

This "transcendental solipsism" springs from the fact that I can verify through direct

perception only those statements which are true for me -- i.e., those which have a merely

private, subjective validity. To claim more than this, I must apparently make what

Husserl terms a "metaphysical" assertion. This is a statement that cannot be

phenomenologically grounded -- i.e., reduced to the immediately experienced

phenomena which could directly justify it. Insofar as objective knowledge does imply

Others, the objection Husserl is raising concerns their existence as perceiving subjects.

The objection is that such existence must remain a "metaphysical" assumption for

phenomenology. We can put this in terms of the suspension of belief with which the

reduction necessarily begins. When this is exercised on the claim of knowledge to have
 Notes
24

objective validity, we must also bracket its claim to be universally valid. This

necessarily involves a suspension of belief in the existence of Others as having the same

perceptual evidence for an assertion as I myself have. The objection here is that there is

no way to re-establish this belief in terms of direct perceptual evidence. Such evidence

would demand the perception of the Other, not as an embodied subject standing over and

against me, but rather, as indicated above, as an actively functioning subject -- i.e., as the

active center or "pole" of his consciousness and world.

The above can also be expressed in terms of transcendental idealism's success in

securing the possibility of objective knowledge understood as the knowledge of the

object "in itself." The reduction, in its second sense, does this by making the known a

"product" of the accomplishment of knowing. It thus introduces an asymmetrical

relationship between the subject and the world which it knows. Such a world, which

includes everything which stands against itself, becomes the subject's product. Now, by

reflecting on its own acts, the subject may be said to become aware that it is a "producer"

and not a "product." But this reflection only yields itself as a subject. In other words, it

is the only constitutively active subject, the only "transcendental ego" which seems to be

given to itself. Its givenness, then, is that of a solitary self -- a solus ipse. As Husserl

puts this objection: "When I, the meditating ego, reduce myself to my absolute

transcendental ego by means of the phenomenological epoché, am I not become a solus

ipse; and do I not remain such as long as I carry out a consistent self-explication under

the name of phenomenology? Should not a phenomenology, which desired to solve the

problems of objective being and already present itself as philosophy, be branded,

therefore, as a transcendental solipsism?" (CM, STrasser ed., p. 121).

§6. The Move to the Pre-Individual Ground.

 Notes
25

The answer of the Cartesian Meditations to this objection will be considered by

us in our first chapter. At present, we may observe that the objection springs from the

identification of what is directly or immediately experienced with what is my own -- i.e.,

what is solipsistically limited to me. If the phenomena and connections I experience are

only my own, then the world constituted out of such is in a private, solipsistic sense only

my "product." Out of this observation, a fundamental motivation arises for Husserl. It is

one tied to the guiding motivation of securing objective knowledge understood in its

twofold sense -- i.e., as agreeing with the object as it is "in itself" and as involving Others

and, hence, universality. The motivation is that of seeing the individuality of the subject

as itself constituted. It is, correspondingly, that of making the reduction reach beyond

this individuality. In Husserl's words, one performs it until one can uncover "my

'coincidence' with Others on an original level of constitution, my coincidence, so to

speak, before there is constituted a world for myself and Others ..." (Ms. C 17 V, p. 30,

1931, italics added). This is a "radically pre-egological" level (See Zur Phänomenologie

der Intersubjectivität, Dritter Teil: 1929-1935, hereafter cited as HA XV, ed. I. Kern,

Husserliana XV, The Hague, 1973, p. 598). On this "original level," as we shall see,

constitution is not the action of an individual ego synthesizing or connecting his

experiences. It is rather what first results in this ego.

A merely preliminary account of the way in which Husserl characterizes this

level may be presented by recalling two points. The first is that it is the task of the

reduction to provide us with a method of access to the being appropriate to Others (See

above, p. 5). Secondly, the relation between epistemology and ontology also defines a

task; that of characterizing being such that objectively valid knowledge -- knowledge

involving Others and, hence, universality -- becomes possible (See above, pp. 9-11).

These two tasks, as is apparent from the way we have defined them, coincide. The being

which makes possible objective knowledge in its universal validity must be such as to
 Notes
26

permit the access of the ego to Others. The reduction, as uncovering the level of being

appropriate to Others, must, then, uncover the level which permits of objective

knowledge.

Now, the nature of the results the reduction will achieve in accomplishing this

task can be indicated in advance by recalling its character. It is, as we have said, the

reverse of constitution. As for constitution itself, it is, for Husserl, the action of

grounding. In this action, one layer of phenomena grounds (or constitutes) the next

through the connections existing between its members. Implicit in this is a distinction

between the ground and the grounded: the individual phenomena on one level are

distinct from those which they constitute through their connections. An already cited

example of this distinction is that between a perspectivally appearing spatial-temporal

object and the individual experiences presenting such perspectives. The latter do not

show themselves perspectivally. As such, they have not the same sense of being as the

spatial-temporal object. With this, we can say that the action of grounding that

characterizes constitution is that of grounding in the Fichtean sense. It is one where, in

Fichte's words, "the ground lies, by virtue of the mere thought of the ground, outside of

the grounded." The assertion springs analytically from the notion of a ground. If the

ground had the same nature as the grounded -- if, in other words, it had the same sense of

being as the grounded -- it would not be a ground. It would rather show itself, like the

grounded, in need of a ground.

What this signifies for the results of the reduction should be clear. As the

reverse of the action of constituting objective, individual being, it must ultimately reach a

ground of objective, individual being, a ground which has not the sense of such being.

Here, we can see a further moment of the reduction in its uncovering of the ontological

conditions for the possibility of knowledge. Initially -- i.e., in Ideen I -- such conditions

were seen in terms of the being which was both individual and temporal but not real.
 Notes
27

The reduction, pushed to its next step, goes beyond this to the ground of individuality

and temporality. Thus, the position of the late manuscripts is, in Fink's words, that "time

is grounded in a present which creates time and is not itself in time; the division of all

being (into essence and existence) is grounded in a prior unity which is neither 'factual'

nor 'possible,' neither one nor many, neither an instantiation nor a kind; [and] the

plurality of subjects is grounded in a depth of life before all individuation responsible for

selves" ("Die Spätphilosophie Husserls in der Freiburger Zeit." Edmund Husserl, 1859-

1959, Rècueil commemoriatif, Phaenomenologica, No. 4, The Hague, 1959, p. 113).

The exact nature of this description will be considered by us in the body of our

text. Here, let us apply its general sense to the reduction's task of uncovering the level of

being on which we do recognize Others as subjects. This, as we quoted Husserl, is "the

original level of constitution." We can get some sense of what this original level is by

noting that constitution, taken as synthesis, occurs in and through time. Time is that in

which experiences are placed and, hence, connected (or synthesized) so as to form

persisting unities of appearing. For Husserl, this signifies that the fundamental layers of

the constitutive process are those of temporalization (Zeitigung) -- this being the process

by which our experiences are "timed." Such "timing" involves both the placing of

experience in time and the constitution of temporal places for such experiences. In other

words, it involves the constitution of time itself in the before and after of its successive

instants. Thus, the original level of constitution is that of the very beginning of the

temporal process. It is that of the timeless sources of time constitution. For Husserl, this

is also the level where we do have an immediate access to our Others. As he puts this:

"The original source-point of time constitution is, for each individual, the experience of

his present in an original mode and is, as well, the capacity of each to experience

Others ... i.e., the capacity of each, within his own living present, to experience Others in

an original manner and with this, indeed, to experience the original coincidence between
 Notes
28

his own and the Other's being" (Ms. C 17 I, 4f, 1931). This assertion of coincidence is

meant quite literally. In moving to the "original sourcepoint" of time, the reduction also

moves to the"depth of life" which is before "the plurality of subjects."9 As paradoxical

and difficult to understand as it may sound, Husserl's position in these late manuscripts is

that our recognition of Others as Others requires that there be a level on which we exist

in an original identity with these Others.

We can understand the above by observing that our recognition of Others

requires our having a sense of our identity as well as our difference with regard to them.

Identity is required insofar as genuine recognition demands a sense of the Other, not as

an object standing over and against me, but as a pole or center of experiences. To quote

Sartre again on this point: "What I must attain is the Other, not as I obtain knowledge of

him, but as he obtains knowledge of himself - which is impossible. This would in fact

suppose the internal identification of myself with the Other" (Being and Nothingness, ed.

cit., p. 317). The remark, "which is impossible," points to the requirement for my

difference from the Other. Such difference is required because a simple identity, when

combined with the thesis of my own individuality, would bring me to a position of

transcendental solipsism. My individual, self-identical ego would be the only ego which

I would ever know.

Husserl's response to these two demands is, we can say, that of avoiding their

conflict by meeting each on a different level. The demand for identity is satisfied on the

level of the ground; that for difference, on the level of the grounded. As satisfying both,

the process of our recognition of Others is, then, a move from the grounded to the

ground. It is, in other words, an implicitly performed phenomenological reduction. To

make it explicit is to prove Husserl's claim. It is to show that transcendental idealism

has within it the solution to the problem of intersubjectivity it raises. More direclty, it is

to show that the reduction, which raises the problem of transcendental solipsism,
 Notes
29

overcomes this problem when pursued to the end. As we shall see, the solution involves

the fact that our sense of the Other as other is, phenomenologically, that of his not being

our "product." It is, positively regarded, a sense of his being a center of constitution,

actively functioning in the ongoing nowness of his being. Reductively analyzed in terms

of its origin in such nowness, this sense of difference reveals its ground in a layer of

original identity. Such identity is not solipsistic since it is prior to the individuality

which would permit the positing of a solus ipse who "produces" his private world. It is,

for Husserl, an identity which shines through whenever we engage in genuine

recognition. It emerges whenever we recognize someone else as other than ourselves --

i.e., as ontologically (and, hence, morally) independent -- and, therefore, as like

ourselves insofar as we claim such independence. Phenomenologically, this recognition

corresponds to the action of the reduction as it moves from the grounded to its ground,

i.e., from difference to underlying identity. Genuine recognition, in other words, as

involving the recognition of otherness and sameness, implicitly corresponds to the

motion of the reduction.

 Notes
30

CHAPTER I
THE ACCOUNT OF THE CARTESIAN MEDITATIONS

§1. The Principio Principii and the Ontological Presupposition Underlying

Recognition.

As we quoted Husserl, the problem of intersubjectivity is that of positing "other

egos ... as existing" "within the attitude of the reduction." It is only within this attitude

that Others can "become legitimate themes of a phenomenological egology." In claiming

success for his solution of this problem, Husserl, therefore, must also claim "that at no

point" in his account of the positing of Others "was the transcendental attitude, the

attitude of the transcendental epoché, abandoned ..." (CM, Strasser ed., p. 175). This

epoché is a suspension of belief in a thesis and a regard to the evidence -- the experience

and connections -- which lead to this belief. Recalling the logical point of its

performance, we can say that the attitude of the epoché is abandoned whenever we

commit the principio principii mentioned by our Introduction. It occurs whenever we

assume, as part of the evidence for a thesis, something tantamount to the thesis itself. In

its full sense, the thesis in question is that of the intersubjective world -- the world that

presupposes Others in its being "co-intended" by them. Our position in this chapter is

that, in phenomenologically accounting for Others, Husserl does violate the epoché. His

evaluation of the evidence for positing Others makes use of a principle which assumes

that the intersubjective world is already given.

In this regard, we must take note of the two aspects of the problem of

intersubjectivity. In the first of these, it initially appears as a descriptive problem. It

requires for its solution a descriptive analysis of our recognition of the Other in terms of

the how of his givenness. What it demands, in other words, is an account of the evidence
 Notes
31

we have for the thesis of the Other. To counter an objection that may be raised against

the position of this chapter, we observe that for some authors the problem embraces only

this descriptive account. As David Carr expresses this: "The task which arises is to

explain how the Other exists for him, not whether the Other exists as such" ("The 'Fifth

Meditation' and Husserl's Cartesianism," PPR, XXXIV, 1973, 19). This view, we can

say, arises by virtue of our ignoring the idealistic context in which this task is set. The

context is that of the transcendental attitude with its epoché. Within this attitude, being is

reduced to being given. This means that the question of the givenness of the Other

becomes the question of the being of the Other. Husserl, thus, writes after claiming not

to have abandoned the transcendental attitude, "... our 'theory' of experiencing Others" is

"... an explication of the sense, 'Others' as it arises from the constitutive productivity of

that experiencing: the sense, 'truly existing Others,' as it arises from the corresponding

harmonious syntheses. What I demonstrate to myself harmoniously as someone else, and

therefore have given to me, by necessity and not by choice, as an actuality to be

acknowledged, is eo ipso the existing Other for me in the transcendental attitude: the

alter ego demonstrated precisely within the experiencing intentionality of my ego" (CM,

trans. D. Carr, The Hague, 1960, p. 148, italics added; Strasser ed., p. 175). Granting

this identification, the question of whether the Other is given to me is tantamount to that

of whether he exists at all for me. In the transcendental attitude, the failure of this

"demonstration" -- i.e., the failure to find within the syntheses of consciousness sufficient

grounds for the positing of Others -- becomes the admission of transcendental solipsism.

We can also say that, in the attitude which reduces existence to its positability through

the "constitutive productivity" of experience, this failure amounts to the transcendental

denial of the Other qua existing.1

A further consequence can be drawn from the above: To commit the principio

principii on the descriptive level is also to engage in it on the ontological level. On the
 Notes
32

descriptive level, violation of the epoché concerns the givenness of the Other.

Committing it involves my assuming that the Other is already given in analyzing the

evidence for his givenness. Since, within the attitude of the reduction, being is reduced

to being given, the assumption concerns not just the givenness but also the being of the

Other. Thus, in committing it, I "beg a principle" which implicitly assumes that my own

being is already a being-with-Others. This means that in my analysis of the evidence for

my existing Others, I already assume -- as a hidden ontological principle -- the being of

the intersubjective world. Inadvertently, the latter, which is the correlate of such Others,

has become part of my demonstration of these Others.

With this, we have the second aspect of the problem of intersubjective

recognition. What precisely does it mean to presuppose, as a hidden ontological

principle, the being of the intersubjective world? What would it take to justify this

principle -- i.e., to phenomenologically ground it? What would such a justification imply

with regard to the being of transcendental subjects? The latter are subjects for whom

being is being given. They constitute the sense and being of the world through "the

accomplishment of knowing." Here, our inquiry concerns the connection between the

ontological principle of the intersubjective world and the nature of the subjects who are

its constitutive origins. The mutual recognition of the latter is implicit in their positing

of their world as intersubjective. Thus, an inquiry into the ontological principle of the

intersubjective world points back to the ontological requirements for mutual recognition.

With this, it serves as a clue to the being of the subjects who are recognized as engaging

in recognition.

§2. A First Description of the Principle Underlying the Intersubjective World.

As we quoted Celms, the phenomenological reduction in its first sense is a

suspension of objective considerations in order to reflect on the modes of

 Notes
33

consciousness in which objects manifest themselves. Put in terms of its goal, it can be

taken as an attempt to uncover the hidden functioning of the ego, the functioning which

allows Husserl to characterize this last "as a presupposition for knowledge of the

world." Now, it is in terms of this functioning that the above-mentioned hidden

ontological principle first appears. At least a preliminary account of it is, thus,

necessary.

According to Husserl, it involves both intentionality and constitution. The

former, in fact, is understood as the result of the latter. This means that the character of

intentionality, the character of consciousness as consciousness of some object, is, for

Husserl, to be understood as resulting from the constitutive process. This process is one

of synthesis. Its fundamental form, that of "identification," leads to the presence of one

thing in many. Husserl uses the perception of a die to describe its action (CM, Stasser

ed., pp. 79-80). When we perceive the die, its appearances (from one side or the other)

"flow away in their temporal stretches and phrases ..." The fact that, in spite of their

multiplicity and transitoriness, they are nonetheless taken as appearances (as intentional

experiences) of "one and the same die" is the result of a "unity of synthesis." By virtue

of this synthesis, "... the unity of an intentional objectivity becomes constituted as the

same in the multitude of its ways of appearing." Even though we suspend our belief in

the die's transcendent, independent existence, "the one and the same appearing die is

continually immanent in the flowing consciousness; it is descriptively in it..." Now, for

our purposes, the crucial point of this account is the way in which the intentional object

is said to be immanent in consciousness. Husserl writes:

This in-consciousness is a completely unique being-in. It is not a being-in as a real,

inherent component; it is rather a being-in as something intentional, as an appearing,

ideal-being-in (als erscheinendes Ideell-darin-sein). In other words, it is a being-in as the

 Notes
34

object's objective sense. The object of consciousness, in its self-identity throughout the

flowing of experience, does not come from outside into such flowing; it is rather present

within it, determined as a sense. It is an intentional accomplishment of the synthesis of

consciousness (CM, Strasser ed., p. 80).

The underlying principle of this doctrine is that being one-in-many is being as a

sense. To conceive the intentional object as a sense, we must, then, take the descriptive

character of intentionality as involving a one-in-many phenomenon. Consciousness

becomes intentional, becomes consciousness of some object, when its separate

experiences point beyond themselves. This they do when they can, in their multitude, be

taken as experiences of some one object (See Ideen I, S36). Insofar as it is the synthetic

act which itself sets up the presence of one thing in many, its result, according to its

mode of being, must be described as a sense.2

Later we shall have to look into this "synthesis of consciousness" in somewhat

greater detail. For the present, we note that this preliminary schema of the functioning of

consciousness gives us, on the subjective (or "noetic") side, the constitutive activity of

consciousness. On the objective (or "noematic" ) side, it gives us objective senses.

From this, the principle inherent in the notion of an "objective" world -- i.e., a world

"common to us all" - is easily derived. The "transcendental attitude," as Husserl defines

it, is one "according to which everything previously existing for us in a straight-forward

way is taken exclusively as a phenomenon, as a sense meant and preserving itself." It is

taken as a "correlate of uncoverable constitutive systems" (CM, Strasser ed., p. 126). A

common world is in principle, then, a world of senses or meanings that are common to

the subjects within it. 3 It is a world of shared meanings, such a world being a correlate

of objective knoweldge transcendentally understood. On the subjective side, this

objective world appears, as "an ideal correlate of an intersubjective experience which

 Notes
35

has been carried out and, ideally, could continuously be carried out in a harmonious

manner." As Husserl also expresses this, it is "essentially related ... to constituting

intersubjectivity whose individual subjects are equipped with mutually corresponding

and harmonious constitutive systems." It presupposes "a harmony of the monads" -- i.e.,

individual subjects. More precisely expressed, it requires "a harmony in the genesis [of

objective senses] that is occuring in the individuals" (CM, Strasser ed., p. 138).

§3. The Two Necessities Governing the Account of the Constitution of

Intersubjectivity.

The question facing us is whether or not the above can be established without

implicitly presupposing it. Let us recall the special situation in which Husserl is placed

once he engages in the phenomenological reduction. The reduction's suspension of the

objective consideration of the world involves the suspension of our belief in its

independent existence. The world, along with its objects, becomes reduced to the status

of a phenomenon. It is regarded as a sense that is constituted in the synthetic processes

of consciousness. Now, in such a situation, the questions arise: "How do I get out of my

island of consciousness? How can what appears in my consciousness as the experience

of evidence win objective significance?" (CM, Strasser ed., p. 116). Such significance,

as we have seen, implies Others. But they, too, as entities transcendent to my

consciousness, seem to be reduced to the status of phenomena -- i.e., to that of senses

constituted in the multiplicities of my experience.

In this situation, we can speak of two necessities imposed on Husserl's answers

to these questions. The first is the necessity, mentioned above, of not abandoning the

transcendental attitude. Now, such an attitude takes the constitutive process as

fundamental. The transcendental (non-worldly) subject is, thus, understood as a subject

"constituting both sense and actuality of being (Seinswirklichkeit)" (CM, Strasser ed., p.
 Notes
36

97). Following this view, one must regard both Others and the resulting objective world

as constituted within one's subjective processes. As Husserl expresses it, one has to say

that "...there are transcendentally constituted in me, the transcendental ego, both other

egos and (as in turn constituted from the resulting transcendental intersubjectivity that

constitutively accrues to me) an objective, common world ..." (CM, Strasser ed., p. 117).

Remaining with the transcendental attitude, there must, in fact, be a distinction in

levels of constitution. If the objective world is to be considered as a sense that is

constituted out of data that are constituted on a more primitive level, then these last,

themselves, cannot have this objective sense. To assume that they do is to asume that the

higher level of constitution has already occurred. Recalling that constitution is a process

of grounding, it is to assume that, contrary to their definitions, the ground and grounded

have the same sense. Husserl, thus, asserts that within the more primitive, grounding

level, "... the sense of 'other subjects' that is in question cannot yet be the sense of

objective, worldly existing Others" (CM,, Strasser ed., p. 124). It cannot because this

sense is one that is grounded (or constituted) by its ground and, thus, is not a sense that is

per se applicable to this ground.

We can express this in terms of the notions of independence and dependence.

The presence of the data on the constituting level is independent of that which they can

constitute through their connections. The presence of the constituted, however, depends

on the presence of the data which constitute it. Thus, Husserl writes of the constituting

(or grounding) level in relation to the sense of the Other it constitutes: "I clearly cannot

have the Other as experience and, therefore, I cannot have the sense, objective world, as

an experiential sense without having this [first] level in actual experience ..." "The

reverse of this," he adds, "is not the case" (CM, Strasser ed., p. 127). In other words, I

can have, independently, experience on the constituting level -- the level that excludes

the objective world. This first level is composed of "whatever the transcendental ego
 Notes
37

constitutes ... as non-other, as uniquely his own (Eigenes) ..." It is, he claims, "within

and by means of this ownness that it ... constitutes the objective world ..." (CM, Strasser

ed., p. 131; see also p. 136).

As we indicated, the necessity for this distinction is that of not abandoning the

transcendental attitude. As such, it is intimately tied to Husserl's claim of not having

abandoned the performance of the epoché. If the notion of objectively existing subjects

occurred in the primary level of constitution, then the suspension of such subjects (or of

the world that is their correlate) would be impossible. We would not be able to regard

the ego as non-worldly in an objective sense, since all the primitive senses related to its

notion would involve the sense of the objective world. 4 In such a case we could not

apply the epoché, for intersubjectivity would be a primary category of meaning. It would

be a basic category for the explication of other meanings and, hence, the application of

the epoché would deprive us of the possibility of such explication. 5

The second necessity is, of course, the recognition of the other subject as other.

This presupposes, in Husserl's words, "that not all of my own modes of consciousness

belong to the circle of those that are modes of my self-consciousness" (CM, Strasser ed.,

p. 135, italics added). This means that, out of the data of the founding level, "the ego can

form new types of intentionalities ... with a sense of being (Seinssinn) whereby it

completely and totally transcends its own being." Their intended effect, the actual

positing of someone other, is suspended by the epoché that leaves us with the first level.

Yet one can see that what they point to has the sense of something more than "a point of

intersection (Schnittpunckt) of my constitutive synthesis" (Ibid.). This recognition, as all

recognition, must, of course, be transcendentally regarded as something constituted.

Constitution, however, here oversteps itself. It constitutes something, according to

Husserl, it cannot recognize as belonging to its primitive "sphere of ownness."

 Notes
38

§4. The identity and the Appresentative (or Pairing) Synthesis.

How is such an "overstepping" possible? It is clear that it cannot occur by virtue

of the synthesis of identification. That which appears as identically one in many

perceptions is, as we quoted Husserl, immanently present within them. It does not come

to them from "outside." If the Other were constituted in this way, then he would only be

a "point of intersection" set up in my consciousness. As Husserl says, "...he would

merely be a moment of my own essence, and ultimately he and I would be one and the

same" (CM, Strasser ed., p. 139). This can also be expressed in terms of the different

levels of constitution. Taken by itself, the synthesis of identification gives me the level

of data whose senses pertain to me. On this level, my modes of consciousness are modes

of self-consciousness insofar as their correlates point to the immanent "intentional

accomplishments of the synthesis of consciousness."

In order, then, to grasp what is really other, a second type of synthesis must

come to the fore. Husserl uses a number of terms to descibe its process:

"appresentation," "pairing," "association" and, finally, "analogizing apperception."

Appresentation is an intending of the presence of one thing on the basis of the actual

presence of another. Thus, on the basis of the presence of the front side of an object --

e.g., a chair -- I also co-intend what is not immediately present: the back. The back of

the chair can, of course, become originally present. I can walk around so as to view it

from the other side. For Husserl, however, the function of appresentation is not limited

to such examples. It can also occur in cases where I cannot make the co-intended

originally present. This is because the intention to one thing on the basis of the other

does not necessarily require the fulfillment of this intention. Thus, I can co-intend

things, such as the interior of the sun, which I am not in any position to make originally

present. I can also mistakenly co-intend things. What I co-intend is not there. My co-

intending is then simply "an empty pretention."

 Notes
39

Pairing is a special case of this process of appresentation. It requires for its basis

two similarly appearing objects. Here, "... two data are intuitively given and ... they

phenomenologically establish a unity of similarity; thus, they are always constituted as a

pair." Such constitution means that the sense which is intuitively present in one of them

can serve as a basis for the co-intending of the same sense with regard to the other. As

Husserl expresses this, the thought of one member "awakens" that of the other. There is,

then, an "intentional overreaching," one that results in the "intentional overlapping of

each with the sense of the other" (CM, Strasser ed., p. 142).

Husserl calls pairing a "primal form" of association. We can, under this title,

find innumerable examples of the phenomenon he is describing. For instance, let us say

that we experience a connection between a person's appearance -- his style of dress, etc.

-- and a certain form of behavior. When we encounter another person similarly dressed,

we may "pair" him with the first individual. On the basis of a "unity of similarity," there

then may occur an associative transfer of sense. In harmony with our first example, we

expect the second to behave in a certain way. We can also say that the presence of a

given style of appearance makes us co-intend the presence of the expected behavior.

Association is, of course, not always correct. Even if it is based on a number of

examples, the transfer of sense can misfire. As we said, there is no necessity in the co-

intended being originally present. Thus, nothing, per se, requires the transferred sense to

become perceptually embodied. To take an example, there is always the possibility of

disguise. A person dresses in a certain way -- e.g., as a mailman. In so doing, he arouses

our expectations. He does so, however, not to reveal, but to conceal his intended

behavior.

At the basis of pairing or association, there is, according to Husserl, an

analogizing apperception. As the term, analogy, indicates, it is essentially a process

whereby consciousness spontaneously acts to set up a proportion. The intuitively given

 Notes
40

data which are constituted as a pair form the first two members of the proportion. An

objective sense attached to the first of these gives us a third member. As for the fourth

term, it is not immediately given. It is an objective sense of the second which is

associatively determined by the other three members. Thus, when data are paired

through a recognition of their given similarity, any additional sense that is attributed to

the first is transferred associately to the second. This process goes on more or less

continuously. In Husserl's words, "Each everyday experience involves an analogizing

transfer of an originally established sense to a new case, with its anticipative

interpretation of the object as possessing a similar sense" (CM, Strasser ed., p. 141).

§5. The Constitution and Verification of the Other.

Let us now consider this process in terms of our recognizing another subject.

The intuitively given data that are paired are my own and the Other's bodily appearing.

They are appearances that are to be considered as constituted on the primary level; that is

to say, they are constituted through the above described synthesis of identification. By

such appearing is understood not just the body as a static phenomenon, but also the body

in action. A third term is given by the sense I have of my ego acting through my body --

i.e., controlling its movements. The body conceived as bearing this objective sense is

understood as an "animate organism (Leib)." As for the fourth term in this proportion,

the Other's ego as controlling his own bodily movements, it is not and cannot be given

immediately to me. The bodily appearance of the Other "... does not prevent us from

admitting that neither the other ego himself, nor his experience -- appearances to him --

nor anything that pertains to his own essence becomes originally given in our experience"

(CM, Strasser ed., p. 139). The other's ego thus stands as an X, as an unknown in our

proportion. This, however, does not prevent the phenomenon of pairing from occurring

and, on this basis, the transfer of the sense "animate organism" to the Other in his bodily
 Notes
41

appearing. With this, the Other's ego becomes determined as a subject "like myself" -- as

an ego acting through his body (See CM, Strasser ed., p. 143).

How is this transfer of sense to be confirmed? In the identity synthesis, the sense

that is established is continually confirmed. It is identically present in the many

appearances, and, thus, is continually regiven. Here, however, we are dealing with a

second level of constitution. Although founded on the first, it gives us the Other as

other. What is demanded, then, is a new "style of verification" -- a "type of verifiable

accessibility to what is not originally accessible" (CM, Strasser ed., p. 144). In Husserl's

doctrine, this means that confirmation continues to be a matter of the founding level, the

level of what is "originally accessible." It occurs, in other words, within the sphere of

ownness, the sphere that establishes the sense of three of the terms of the proportion. It

is, after all, out of the senses of this level that the sense of the Other must be constituted.

Concretely, this means that the "analogizing transfer" of sense continues only so

long as its basis remains intact. This basis is formed by the intuitively given data whose

similarity allows them to be "paired" or associatively linked. Now, in the case of the

recognition of the Other, the original pairing occurs, as we said, between my body and

that of the Other. This means that their appearances -- primarily in the matter of their

action or behavior -- must continually maintain a certain similarity. In Husserl's words,

"The experienced animate organism of the Other continues to manifest itself as actually

an animate organism solely through its continually harmonious behavior ... The organism

is experienced as a pseudo-organism precisely when it does not agree in its behavior"

(CM, Straser ed., p. 144). "Harmonious," here, means harmonious with my own

behavior. The Other's actions must "agree" with this in order to establish the similarity

necessary for pairing. As Husserl expresses this, the Other's ego is "determined as thus

governing his body (and, in a familiar way, constantly confirms this) only insofar as the

whole stylistic form of the sensible processes that are primordially perceivable by me
 Notes
42

must correspond to what is known in type from my own governing my body" (CM,

Strasser ed., p. 148). This is also the case with the "higher psychical occurrences." They

have "their style of synthetic connections and their form of occurring which can be

understandable to me through their associative basis in my own style of life, a style

empirically familiar to me in its average typicality" (Ibid., p. 149).

The way I verify my recognition of the Other is, then, through the continuing

similarity of our behavior. The behavior that is primordially (or directly) perceived by

me is taken as similar in type to my own. Proceeding from this basis, I constantly

transfer to the Other the senses of the psychic determinations that I have directly

experienced in my own conduct. In this way, I indirectly experience the Other as

governing his body, as having "higher" psychic processes that are comprehensible

through the typical behavioral manifestations which I showed when similar processes

occurred in me. That throughout all of this, I remain the standard of behavior, the

standard for its harmoniousness, is, of course, self-understood. As I can never directly

perceive the Other's ego, it is only through an associative transfer of the senses of my

own psychic processes that he can be recognized as a subject.

§6. The Double Pairing and its Results.

Husserl adds an important refinement to this description in terms of the notions

of the "here" and the "there." As he observes, each of us experiences his body in the

mode of the "here." It is, so to speak, a permanent "zero point" by which we mark off

spatial distances. The Other's body, in contrast, is always experienced in the mode of

"there." It is experienced as an object among the objects of an individual's surrounding

world. There is, then, a crucial dissimilarity between the appearing of my own body in

the here and that of the Other in the there. Given that pairing does require similarity, we

must, then, say of the Other: "its manner of appearance is not paired in direct association
 Notes
43

with the manner of appearance which my body always actually has (the mode, here)..."

(CM, Strasser ed., p. 147).

What we have, in fact, is a double pairing. The pairing with the Other's body is

actually an "association at a higher level," one founded on a more primitive association.

The nature of the latter concerns my ability, via my bodily movement to change any

there into a here. As Husserl writes, "this implies that, perceiving from the there, I

should see the same things, only in correspondingly different modes of appearance such

as would pertain to my being there ..." (CM, Strasser ed., p. 146). That, in fact, we do

experience this to be the case leads to the phenomenon of appresentation. The

presentation of objects from one position contains (as an implicit co-intending) an

appresentation of them from another position. According to Husserl, this phenomenon

also occurs with regard to our own bodies. Tied to the possibility of my movement is the

fact that "my bodily animate organism is interpreted and interpretable as a natural body

existing in space and movable like any other natural body" (Ibid.). Given this, the

presentation of my body in the here contains an implicit appresentation of the same body

"existing in space" at some distance from the here. In Husserl's words, I have the

possibility of appresenting "the way my body would look if I were there." The first

pairing, then, is between my body in the modes of the here and the there. It is with

regard to the body interpreted in the latter mode -- i.e., as there -- that the Other's body

comes to be paired (CM, Strasser ed., p. 147).

Out of this twofold pairing, Husserl establishes 1) the otherness of the Other and

both 2) the transcendence and 3) the commonness of the world for both of us. Let us

consider these points, one by one. With regard to the first, we may observe that the two

pairings by which I apprehend the Other are distinguishable insofar as the first involves

possibility and the second, actuality. When the Other calls to mind the way I would look

were I there, the basis of this is the possibility I have of changing my position to the
 Notes
44

there. The Other, however, is actually experienced as being there. Now, the contents of

the here and there exclude each other. My sphere of ownness is not such that,

maintaining its unity, it can simultaneously present the world from two different

positions. Thus, the fact that the pairing does involve the duality of the here and there,

while I actually remain in the here, means that I must appresent the other ego as other. In

other words, what is "primordially incompatible" -- i.e., incompatible in terms of the

primordial experiences of my sphere of ownness -- becomes compatible in granting the

other an actually distinct sphere of ownness. It is the sphere in which the world is

actually -- i.e., presently -- experienced from the there. By virtue of this, we can say

with Husserl, "... my primordial ego, through appresentative apperception, constitutes for

itself another ego which, according to its own nature, never demands or allows

fulfillment through direct perception (CM, Strasser ed., p. 148). It does not, for the

appresented perception involves a there actually different from my here.

This solution allows Husserl to add a second "intersubjective" sense to the

phenomenological notion of the transcendence of the world. The first sense of

transcendence is one of "transcendence in immanence." It is a function of the first level

of constitution as it occurs in the solitary ego's sphere of ownness. According to Husserl,

this first sense is an immanently grounded correlate of "specific types" of perceptual

connections (See Ideen I, Biemel ed., p. 111). His reference is to the types of

connections which set up the pespectival appearing of a spatial-temporal object. In such

appearing, no single perception counts as final -- i.e., as inherently excluding the

possibility of another, slightly different perception of the same object. A perspectival

series thus shows the possibility of an indefinite continuance; a view of one side of the

object constantly calls forth the possibility of a view of another side. This means that the

spatial-temporal object, which appears in such a series, itself bears the sense of
 Notes
45

something capable of indefinite exhibition. Its sense, in other words, is that of an object

which surpasses or transcends the sum of the actual views which I have already had of it.

Transcendence, in this account, is a function of the relation between the actual

and the possible. It is, phenomenologically speaking, the surpassing of the actual by the

possibilities implied by the actual. In the context of the solitary ego, the actual refers to

his given perceptions. It is these, through their perspectival connections, which give the

ego the implicit feeling of the possibility of having further perceptions. Here, the fact

that these are immanently or directly his own perceptions justifies Husserl in speaking of

transcendence as an "immanently grounded correlate" of the subject's perceptions. Now,

when we do posit other subjects and posit the object as co-perceived by them, a second,

intersubjective sense of transcendence arises. At this point, as David Carr writes, "The

object is not only irreducible to any particular acts of mine; it is also not reducible to all

possible acts of mine, my whole actual and possible stream of consciousness, because it

is identically the same for Others and their acts as well" ("The Fifth Meditation ...," ed.,

cit., p. 18). This second, "objective" sense of transcendence involves more than the

transcendence of the possible with regard to the actual. It is a transcendence involving

distinct actualities. This is because the sense of a possibility surpassing my own

possibilities is one which is implicit in an actuality which also surpasses my own

actuality. It requires the actuality of the Other in his perceptual experiences. The

constitution of this sense of transcendence, thus, depends upon an Other who is actually

other.6 It is a function of granting the Other an actually distinct sphere of ownness. For

Husserl, it is accomplished by my constituting the Other as actually there at the same

moment that I am actually here.

Finally, with regard to the commonness of the world (or "nature") for both of us,

this follows according to Husserl from the description of the first pairing. The pairing of

my body in the modes of the here and the there has its basis in my bodily movement.
 Notes
46

Such movement, as Husserl writes, experientially presents the same nature "only in

correspondingly different modes of appearance." Thus, when the Other is paired to my

body in the mode of the there, he too must experience "the same nature, but in the mode

of appearance: as if I stood there where the other's body is." This means that in the

appresented Other, "the synthetic systems with all their modes of appearance are the

same ... except that the actual perceptions and ... in part also the actually perceivable

objects are not the same, but rather precisely those that are perceivable from there as they

are perceivable from there" (CM, Strasser ed., p. 152). The reference to the identity of

synthetic systems should call to mind Husserl's goal of describing the constitution of an

intersubjective, objective world. Such a world is defined as a correlate of "mutually

corresponding and harmonious constitutive systems." It is the world of shared meanings

resulting from these systems. With his account of the constitution of the other ego (and,

through reduplication of this, of a plurality of other egos), Husserl now assumes that he

has reached his goal (See CM, §62).

§7. Sartre's and Schutz's Criticism of the Account

As ingenious as this account obviously is, it suffers, according to Sartre, from an

inherent difficulty. Even if we grant its descriptions with regard to pairing and the

transfer of sense, we establish only a "parallelism of empirical egos" (Being and

Nothingness, ed. cit., p. 316). In other words, granting that pairing occurs on the basis of

similarity, the fact that the first term of the pair is a body interpreted as an animate (or a

"psychophysical") organism means that the second term must also be regarded as such.

As Schutz expresses Sartre's point:

The appresenting term of the coupling is not my transcendental ego, but my own self-

given life as a psychophysical I ... And what is appresented by this pairing is first the
 Notes
47

object in the outer world interpreted as the body of another human being, which as such

indicates the mental life of the Other -- the Other, however, still as a mundane

psychophysical unity within the world, as a fellow man, therefore, and not as a

transcendental ego ("Sartre's theory of the Other Ego," Collected Papers I, ed. M.

Natanson, Phaenomenologica, No. 11, The Hague, 1973, P. 197).

The difficulty, then, is easily recognizable. Since pairing is supposed to be

constitutive of the Other, the Other that is constituted by this process is not a

transcendental ego; it is a worldly or embodied ego. Transcendental intersubjectivity,

however, is defined as a community of transcendental egos. As is apparent from

Husserl's description of the transcendental -- as opposed to the mundane, psychological --

ego, the recognition of the Other as an animate organism cannot suffice to establish this

intersubjectivity. The embodied psychological ego, when being transformed into its

transcendental counterpart, "loses that which gives it the value of something real in the

näively experienced, pre-given world; it loses the sense of being a soul of an animate

organism (Leibes) which exists in a pre-given spatial-temporal nature" ("Nachwort," ed.

cit., p. 145). Thus, in establishing the Other simply as an ego of an animate organism,

the process of pairing cannot reach the transcendental community that is Husserl's goal.

The same point can be put in a slightly different fashion. For Husserl, the ego is

not part of the world insofar as it is seen as constituting the world. To view it as

transcendental is to consider it as constituting; to view it as a worldly or embodied ego is

to consider it as constituted. The pairing of two embodied egos is, then, the pairing of

two constituted products. As such, it presupposes the deeper transcendental level which

results in these two. This is the level which first establishes the sense of myself as

worldly --i.e., as capable of motion in space with the accompanying notions of the "here"

and "there." It, thus, is also the level which establishes the sense of the Other as paired to
 Notes
48

my worldly being in the "there." Now, to establish, rather than presuppose this level, we

must grasp the two subjects as constituting. What we require, then, is not a "parallelism

of empirical egos," but rather one of transcendental, constituting egos.

§8. The Petitio Principii of the Account

Disagreement may be expressed with the above insofar as Husserl does make

reference to the "synthetic systems" of both my own and the Other's ego. His account, he

claims, shows that the Other constitutes as I do and, thus, allows me to take him as a

transcendental ego like myself. A difficulty, however, still remains. It is that this

interpretation is based on the associative transfer of the notion of myself as constituting.

The senses that are accomplished by this constituting (the sense of nature for me) are also

transferred to the Other. When, in this context, we raise the issue of the legitimacy of

this transfer, a certain circularity in Husserl's exposition immediately appears. The

transfer can, apparently, only be validated by itself. In other words, we presuppose the

validity of the transfer in attempting to verify that it is, indeed, valid.

Let us put this in terms of the epoché. As we have stressed, the epoché applied

to a thesis requires a suspension of belief in the thesis. Thus, the thesis cannot be

assumed in evaluating the evidence for it. Now, taken in its full sense, the thesis in

question is that of the intersubjective world. Subjectively viewed, the thesis is that of a

"constituting intersubjectivity whose individual subjects are equipped with mutually

corresponding and harmonious constitutive systems." Objectively considered, it claims

a harmony of the senses generated by such systems. It, thus, appears as the thesis of

the world of shared senses or meanings. To establish this thesis, I must, then, establish

1) that there is someone else besides my "primordial" ego. I must further establish 2)

that this Other constitutes as I do and, hence, that we share the meanings of the world

generated by this constitution. Having performed the epoché, I cannot, therefore, make
 Notes
49

use of these theses. In other words, in evaluating the evidence which is supposed to

establish them, I must keep open the possibility, first of all, that there is no Other. I

must also keep open the possibility that such an Other, if he exists, does not constitute

the way I do and, hence, does not share meanings with me.

For Husserl, as we have seen, it is through behavior that both theses are verified.

Thus, with respect to the first thesis, it is through behavior that is harmonious with my

own that I posit and constantly reconfirm my positing of the Other as an embodied

subject. A break in this harmony results in the dissolution of this positing. As Husserl

expresses this, "The experienced animate organism (Leib) of another continues to prove

itself as actually an animate organism solely in its changing but incessantly harmonious

behavior. ... The organism becomes experienced as a pseudo-organism precisely if there

is something discordant about its behavior" (CM, Strasser ed., p. 114). The continual

harmony of our behavior also results in my positing and reconfirmation of the Other as a

transcendental subject like myself. It is what gives me the constantly reconfirmed sense

of the Other as constituting as I do the objective sense of the world. It does this by

allowing me to pair the Other with myself in the "there" and to take him as experiencing

"the same nature, but in the mode of experience: as if I stood there where the other's

body is." Harmonious behavior thus permits the associative transfer to the Other in the

there of what I can primordially experience in my own case: the unchanging nature of

the constitutive system with regard to the here and the there. Granting this, we can say

that our positing of Others as embodied like ourselves and as constituting as we do both

have their evidential basis in the harmony of our behavior. With regard to the second,

the verification of our sharing of meanings is tantamount to the verification of such

harmonious behavior.

Can such verification proceed without assuming that I and the Other do share

meanings? Does it leave open the possibility of a negative result? This last would be the
 Notes
50

admission that there is a possible Other who is other in a transcendental sense -- i.e., who

constitutes differently from myself. It is easy to see that this admission cannot be made.

According to the above, the Other who is positable must, first of all, be an embodied

subject. Yet the evidence for the Other as embodied -- i.e., as an "animate organism" --

is the same as the evidence for his constituting like myself. Given that disharmonious

behavior results in denial of the embodied Other, the only subjects I can posit on the

basis of behavioral evidence must be transcendental subjects like myself.

This foreclosing of the possibility of a negative result points to the violation of

the epoché. It indicates that in positing the Other, I must already assume that we share

meanings. To make this explicit, let us note that an Other for whom the world had an

entirely different meaning and who acted accordingly would not have a behavior

harmonious with mine. Thus, he would not be recognized as a subject by me. This

means that only the behavior that is in accord with the meanings which I give to the

world counts as harmonious with my own and, thus, counts as evidence for the positing

of the Other as a subject. Such positing must, then, assume from the beginning a sharing

of meanings by myself and the Other.

This point can also be expressed in terms of the Husserlian analysis of

intentional behavior -- i.e., the behavior indicative of the presence of actual subjects as

opposed to mere things. When we act intentionally, we direct ourselves towards

intentional objects. Such objects, we have seen, are present to consciousness as objective

senses, senses which themselves are regarded as the accomplishments of the syntheses of

our consciousness. This means that in intentional behavior, situations appear to us in a

certain light. They are interpreted as having a certain meaning, a meaning which

prompts us to act in certain corresponding ("appropriate") ways. Taken in this way,

behavior that is harmonious with mine must be defined as behavior in accord with the

meanings which I would give to a similar situation. Granting this, we can say that the
 Notes
51

behavioral evidence which I do accept as pointing to the Other presupposes that as a

subject he already possesses a constitutive system harmonious with my own. It assumes

that the meanings which result from this system and prompt his behavior are already

shared by us. We can also say that such evidence presupposes a transfer of sense to the

Other from the intentional context of my actions. This follows since such senses serve as

standards for my evaluation of the harmoniousness of his behavior and, on this basis,

standards for positing him as a subject.

If the above is correct, then the transfer of sense -- or, equivalently, the world of

shared meanings established by this transfer -- is not something whose legitimacy can

be tested by behavior. It is something by which we test behavior. Otherwise

expressed: it is a principle presupposed by our attempt to recognize the Other through

his behavior. The circularity, then, of Husserl's explication is clear: its criterion for

the sharing of meanings is the harmoniousness of behavior; its criterion for this last is

the sharing of meanings. Now, the world of shared meanings is the underlying

principle defining an intersubjective world. For Husserl, to asume it is to assume a

correlate intersubjective community. Thus, if this principle is presupposed in

evaluating behavior, such an evaluation cannot, without circularity, verify the

principle. One can also say that Husserl commits a petitio principii -- the very thing

which the epoché was designed to avoid -- when he uses behavioral evidence to verify

intersubjectivity and presupposes in the evaluation of such evidence the underlying

principle of intersubjectivity. This, in fact, is to presuppose the very intersubjectivity

he wishes to transcendentally establish.

§9. Constitution in Terms of the Second Sense of the Reduction.

We can deepen our understanding of this criticism by moving beyond the sense of

the reduction as an epoché to a consideration of its second sense. This sense, as Celms

writes, is a "leading back of the conditioned to its conditions" (Der Phän. Id. Husserls,
 Notes
52

ed. cit., p. 310). The conditioned is composed of the being which is transcendent to

consciousness. It is the being which is posited as objective or worldly -- i.e., as

existing within a spatial-temporal world. As for the conditions, these are composed of

the experiences and connections of consciousness. The relation of the two -- as the

terms, "conditioned" and "conditions" imply -- is one of dependence. The conditioned

have being only insofar as the conditions have being. This means, negatively, that the

conditioned cannot exist on its own. Positively, it signifies that the reduction is to be

regarded as the inclusion of the sense of being of what is reduced (i.e., the conditioned)

in the sense of the being of the conditions to which it has been reduced. Taken in this

sense, the reduction is, thus, an ontological shift. It no longer concerns itself just with

knowing. It is no longer simply a shift from objective to subjective considerations to

explain how the subjective functioning of the ego makes it a "presupposition" for

knowing. In the second sense of the reduction, this functioning becomes understood as

a presupposition for the being of the object which is known.

Closely tied with the move from the first to the second sense of the reduction is a

change that occurs in the notion of constitution. As Schutz describes this:

At the beginning of phenomenology, constitution meant clarification of the sense

structures of conscious life, inquiry into sediments in respect of their history, tracing

back all cogitata to intentional operations of the on-going conscious life. ... But

unobtrusively... the idea of constitution has changed from a clarification of sense

structures, from an explanation of the sense of being, into the foundation of the

structure of being; it has changed from explication to creation ("The Problem of

Transcendental Intersubjectivity in Husserl," Collective Papers III, ed. cit., p. 83).

 Notes
53

The relation of this change to that of the meaning of the reduction follows from a

point we earlier made: for Husserl, constitution is the reverse of the process of the

reduction. What the reduction does is uncover layer by layer the constitutive process.

Thus, the claim that the reduction uncovers the independent conditions for the being of

the transcendent world becomes a claim that constitution is itself independently

responsible for this being -- i.e., is "creative" of it.

This latter claim can be made concrete by considering three different ways of

viewing consciousness. Each of these is appropriate to a different level of its self-

constitution -- that is, to a different sense of itself which is constituted by its own

functioning. The first is the view that natural science takes of the subject. The subject

is here taken as passive to the world. It is understood as causally determined by the

world in both its conceptions and behavior. The second way of viewing the subject is

brought about by the first sense of the reduction which suspends the above. It does so,

we have stressed, in order to inquire into the experiences and acts by which the first

view is affirmed. On this second level, the ego is viewed as a center of acts and

intentions. Its relation to the world is one where the ego acts to interpret the sensuous

data it receives from the world. Now, this view can be so interpreted that it approaches

the Kantian position. For Kant, rather than being considered as passively determined

by the world, the subject's conceptions of the world -- including those of its spatial and

temporal features -- are regarded as almost totally the result of its own activity. We

say "almost totally" since the externally existing "things in themselves" act to provide

consciousness with a "transcendental affection" -- i.e., with "data." Out of such data,

consciousness acts, according to its own categories of functioning, to produce the

objective sense of the world. This sense, rather than being revelatory of the world "in

itself" points back to the activity and categories of consciousness. In itself, i.e., in its

own categories, the world remains, in this view, unknowable.

 Notes
54

The relation of the third to the second view of consciousness is the same as that of

the latter to the first. It is brought out by suspending the second and explaining it in

terms of its constitutive origins. The view of consciousness to be constitutively

explained is that of consciousness as inner-worldly. It is consciousness posited as

receptive -- even if this be in the minimal Kantian sense -- to affections from

independently existing entities. Given that constitution is a process of grounding, the

move from this level is that from the grounded to its ground. This means that the

elements of the ground cannot have the characteristics of the level which they ground.

Consciousness on this third level thus loses its inner-worldly or receptive character.

Correspondingly, the transcendental idealism which investigates this level, as Husserl

writes, "is not a Kantian idealism which believes it can keep open, at least as a limiting

concept, the possiblity of a world of things in themselves ..." (CM, Strasser ed., p.

118). It is, in other words, unconcerned with "inferences leading from a supposed

immanence to a supposed transcendence, the latter being some undetermined thing in

itself ..." (Ibid.) This implies, with regard to the supposed receptivity of consciousness

to such entities, that it is, as Husserl says, "not an idealism which seeks to derive a

world full of sense from senseless, sensuous data" (Ibid.).

As Fink observes, it is this abandonment of the inner-worldly, receptive character

of consciousness which first gives constitution the character of creation. 7 It does this,

we can say, by radically transforming the character of givenness. Givenness,

understood in the most basic sense of perceptual presence in the now, becomes

understood as self-givenness. As Paul Ricoeur expresses this, constitution is to be

taken not just as embracing the constitution of sense, but also as embracing, in its

constitution of actuality, the very "fullness" of intuitive presence. 8 Now, this

Husserlian denial of things in themselves and, consequently, of the receptivity of

consciousness can be expressed in two different ways. Negatively regarded, it

 Notes
55

signifies, according to De Boer, that "transcendental consciousness does not

acknowledge an 'outside' as if a world existing in itself had to force its way in

qurµqen" -- i.e., from outside ("Zusammenfassung," op. cit., p. 595). Positively, it

signifies that consciousness is productive or creative of the very data which, on the

second level, were assumed to be externally given to it. Thus, in opposition to the

view that limits constitution to the function of interpreting given sense data, here we

must maintain that "the appearing thing becomes constituted because in the original

flowing [of consciousness] both units of sensation (Emfindungseinheiten) and unitary

interpretations become constituted ..." (Zur Phänomenologie des inneren

Zeitbeusstseins, hereafter cited as Ph. d. i. Z., ed. R. Boehm, Husseriana X, The Hague,

1966, p. 92).9

This notion of the creative functioning of consciousness can be expanded by

noting the following: If consciousness is the independent origin of the data which

compose its experiences, it is also the independent (or creative) origin of the positing

which results from such experiences. Now, within the transcendental attitude, being is

reduced to such positing. If the object can be adequately posited -- i.e., adequately

grasped in terms of the synthesis of our experiences -- then, as Husserl says, "... eo ipso

the object is truly existent -- wahrhaft seiend" (Ideen I, Biemel ed., p. 349). Thus, if it

is the independent origin of its positing, it is also the independent (or creative) origin of

the existence of the posited.

Husserl does not shrink from applying this doctrine to consciousness itself

considered in our first and second ways of viewing it. Its being on the levels

considered by these views is itself taken to be a constituted product. Thus, on the

second level, it is taken as receptive, as an entity within the world subject to the

"transcendent affections" it receives from the things in themselves. Yet, on the deeper

level, it is not receptive. The view from this level, as Husserl writes, "yields the fact
 Notes
56

that every affection springs from already constituted unities ..." (Ms. C 10 V, 1931).

Correspondingly, the ego which is affected is, as pertaining to the second level, an

already constituted one. In Husserl's words, "The ego which has recourse to affection

is always already constituted as an identical 'lasting and streaming' ego 'for' its world

which is already totally constituted for it" (Ibid.). We can understand this last remark

in terms of Husserl's position that such affections, considered as "senseless, sensuous

data," i.e., as the basic "units of sensation," are themselves constituted. Our ignorance

of this fact when we remain on the second level, leads us to suppose that such

affections are externally provided. With this, we posit things in themselves. They are

posited as entities independent of consciousness and acting externally to affect it. By

virtue of such positing, consciousness acts to posit itself within the world. In other

words, it independently constitutes itself as an entity among entities, both affecting and

being affected by such things in themselves. Once the receptive ego has been

constituted, we have the possibility of a further constitution -- one that results in our

first view of consciousness. This is the constitution accomplished by the acts and

intentions of the receptive ego which results in the positing of the world which is

explicated by modern science. Here, as we said, the ego is posited as passive. Its

thesis is that of a bodily entity which is causally determined by the spatial-temporal

nature that is posited on this level. As passive, what Husserl calls its "self-

externalization" is complete. All of the activity originally ascribed to it is now placed

in sources external to itself.

That such self-externalization does not occur on the most original level of

constitution implies that consciousness on this level is understood as totally active. It

is the independent or creative source of both the data of its experiences and what is

posited from this data. As such, according to Husserl, it can be understood as

implicitly containing both. We can put this in terms of Celm's assertion that the
 Notes
57

reduction to this third, most primitive level is actually "the inclusion of the sense of

being of the reduced in the sense of being of the basis to which it is reduced" (Der

Phän. Id. Hus., ed. cit, p. 311). This does not mean that the sense of the constitutively

grounded is per se present in the individual elements of its constitutive ground. It

signifies, rather, that consciousness understood genetically -- i.e., as a continuous

constitutive process -- includes both the positing and the posited (the constituting and

the constituted) being. It includes, in other words, all the levels of its own being as

well as those of the world's being which are correlated to these. It is on the basis of

this "genetic" understanding of consciousness that Husserl can assert, "Pure

consciousness ... conceals in itself all worldly transcendencies ... constituting them in

itself ..." (Ideen I, Biemel ed., p. 119). Given that such constitution involves not just

the transcendent but also the immanent -- i.e., the sensuous experiences of

consciousness -- this signifies that "every conceivable sense, every conceivable being,

whether the latter be called immanent or transcendent, falls within the realm of

transcendental subjectivity as that which constitutes sense and being" (CM, Strasser

ed., p. 118, italics added). The same understanding, we may also note, is what gives

both the context and the urgency to what Husserl called the "Humean problem." This

is "the problem of the world in the deepest and most ultimate sense, the problem of a

world whose being is being from subjective performances, and this with such evidence

that another world is not thinkable at all ..." (Die Krisis der europaeischen

Wissenschaften und die transzendentale Phänomenologie, hereafter cited as Krisis, ed.

W. Biemel, 2nd ed. Husserliana VI, The Hague, 1962, p. 100).

§10. The Ontological Explanation of the Shift in the Notion of Constitution.

What is the notion of being that underlies these last assertions? An answer can be

found by returning to the passage where Husserl calls what is constituted a product or
 Notes
58

creation (Gebilde) of the action of knowing. As we quoted Husserl in our

Introduction: "Genuine epistemology ... instead of dealing with contradictory

inferences which lead from a supposed immanence to a supposed transcendence ... has

to do with a systematic explanation of the accomplishment of knowing, an explanation

in which this becomes thoroughly understandable as an intentional accomplishment.

Precisely thereby, every being itself, be it real or ideal, becomes understandable as a

constituted product (Gebilde) of transcendental subjectivity, a product that is

constituted in just such an accomplishment" (CM, Strasser ed., p. 118). Reduced to

plain terms, this passage asserts that being itself is a product of knowing; it is an

"accomplishment" of the "intentional" process of knowing. Now, knowing, taken as

such a process, is directed towards an intentional object. This last, as we observed, is

immanent in consciousness as an "objective sense," a sense which is the

"accomplishment" of consciousness. For this accomplishment to be considered as a

creation, a crucial change in the notion of sense must occur. Creation, understood in a

radical manner, is an ontological affair; it refers to being. The inference, then, is that

the sense, which is this accomplishment, is itself to be taken as the "being itself." To

reverse this, we can say that the ontological basis of the above assertions is an

understanding which, broadly speaking, takes "every sort of being itself" as a

constituted sense.

The Husserlian texts for this understanding are often quite explicit. He writes, for

example, "All real unities are unities of sense. ... Reality and world are simply titles

for certain valid unities of sense essentially related to certain specific connections of

pure, absolute consciousness, consciousness which bestows sense and confirms

validity" (Ideen I, Biemel ed., p. 134). Such texts lead De Boer to write:
 Notes
59
In psychology, sense is the result of an abstraction, of an abandonment of the
supposedly independent existence of the external world. It concerns a limitation to
what is phenomenal because the "actual" thing is seen as unreachable. In
transcendental phenomenology, however, sense is being itself. At the end of the
Fundamentalbetractung, when it is said that the world can only exist as a sense or
phenomenon, with this is understood the world's very mode of being
("Zusammenfassung," op. cit., p. 597).10

This transformation of the ontological status of sense can be expressed in terms of

Husserl's denial of self-existent things in themselves -- entitites which in some way

"affect" consciousness. As long as we posit such entitites, sense is distinguished from

being. It is not the "being itself," but rather something which requires the action of the

latter on consciousness. It is what consciousness "lifts off" or abstracts from the being

as the latter affects it. Its ontological status is, in other words, that of the sense of the

being, the phenomenal appearance of some reality. It has not the status of the "real

unity" itself. Let us put this in terms of the Kantian "psychology" referred to by De

Boer. Here, the positing of things in themselves results in a total abstraction of sense

from being. The "actual thing" for Kant is unknowable. Its connection with

consciousness is limited to that of providing a "transcendent affection," one which

consciousness "makes sense" of acording to its own categories. Now, the Husserlian

equation of being with sense immediately rules out any notion of being which is

distinct from sense. It, thus, rules out the notion of the Kantian Ding-an-sich, which is

said to be unknowable precisely because it is posited as beyond any sense which

consciousness could grasp. To reverse this, we can also say that the denial of an

independently existing thing in itself immediately collapses being and sense. The

denial signifies that there is no being beyond sense to which this latter could refer.

Sense, therefore, can no longer be understood as something abstracted (or separated

off) from a being which is conceived as other than sense.

 Notes
60

The above holds generally for all positions which see constituted sense as an

abstraction from being. The distinction of such sense from being rests on the notion of

the dependence of consciousness in its sense giving function. As long as this function is

taken as requring an externally provided material, the senses it constitutes point beyond

themselves. They are taken as referring to entities whose "transcendental affection" was

necessary for their formation. The result is that sense is conceived, not as the "being

itself," but as a dependent expression of such being. It is taken as the appearance of the

latter. To eliminate this position, we must eliminate its basis. This means that the

distinction collapses once we deny the notion of a transcendent affection of

consciousness. At this point, consciousness becomes the independent origin of all the

senses it can grasp. It becomes absolute in its sense giving function. Insofar as such

senses can no longer be considered as distinct from being, consciousness in constituting

such senses, becomes understood as constituting being. Otherwise put: its sense giving

function -- rather than being considered an abstraction from being -- is seen as creative of

the latter.

This, according to De Boer, is Husserl's position. It appears as early as the Ideen

when Husserl writes, "... the world itself has the whole of its being as a certain 'sense,'

one which presupposes absolute consciousness as the field of sense giving" (Ideen I,

Biemel ed., p. 135). The former, Husserl adds, is "dependent," the latter (absolute

consciousness) is "independent." What does this signify? Given the equation between

constituting sense and constituting being, the notion of creation seems unavoidable. As

De Boer writes, "The expressions 'creation' and 'production' do not appear in Ideen I;

but when one reads the Fundamentalbetractung as it wants to be read, namely, as a

discourse about being, then the terms which Husserl does use -- 'independence' and

'dependence' -- exactly express what he means. At that point there can be no more talk
 Notes
61

about realism or even realistic elements in Husserl's thought" ("Zusammenfassung," op.

cit., p. 598).

We can fill out this picture by noting two further positions it involves. The first

is that of the all-inclusive nature of consciousness in its sense giving function.

Consciousness can conceal in itself all worldly transcendencies, "constituting them in

itself," only if can, indeed, constitutes all possible worldly beings -- i.e., all possible

senses of the world. The inclusivity of consciousness with regard to such beings (or

senses) is asserted by Husserl as follows: "The attempt to conceive of the universe of

true being as something that stands outside of the universe of possible consciousness ...

is nonsense. ... If transcendental subjectivity is the universe of possible sense, then an

outside is precisely nonsense" (CM, Strasser ed., p. 117). Besides the implicit equation

of sense and "true being," what is striking here is the assertion that consciousness is

"the universe of possible sense." It is because every sense per se is to be found within

consciousness that an outside -- i.e., a sense or a being existing outside of a possible

consciousness -- is described as "nonsense." With this, we have Husserl's second

position which is that consciousness is "absolute" or independent in its sense giving

function. Husserl writes in this regard: "The positing of unities of sense [real, existent

unities] ... presupposes sense giving consciousness which, on its side, is absolute and

does not exist through sense bestowed on it from another source" (Ideen I, Biemel ed.,

p. 134). The reason why consciousness does not exist through some external sense

bestowal is that it is the original generator of sense. Sense is here conceived as a "one

in many" whose material -- i.e., the "many" -- is formed out of the immanent

experiences of consciousness. Consciousness, then, is the original ground of sense

insofar as it is only within consciousness that the experiences and connections can be

found which result in sense. This is why the place of sense is within consciousness

and, hence, the notion of a sense outside of it is "nonsense".

 Notes
62

§11. The Principio Principii and the Creative Functioning of Consciousness.

The problems this doctrine raises for the constitution of Others are enormous.

Their general tenor can be indicated by recalling that for Husserl the Other must first

be posited as embodied in order to then be posited as transcendental. As we have seen,

the evidence for both positings is the same. Now, as embodied, the Other is a "worldly

transcendency." He is a constituted sense concealed in me; qua sense, he is the result

of the connections within my consciousness. Considered as transcendental, however,

the Other is not a sense per se. He may indeed be called the place of sense, "the

universe of possible sense." But this is because he is the ground of sense. It is only

within him that one finds those experiences and connections which result in sense.

This is why Husserl calls the transcendental subject "absolute," and asserts that he

"does not exist through sense bestowal from some other source." Given this, he cannot

be constituted by me through my external act of sense bestowal. Here, we have to say

that the embodied ego I confront is too much my product to be really other. As for the

transcendental ego, as a ground of sense, rather than a sense, he entirely avoids my

efforts at sense constitution. Thus, we cannot follow Husserl and say that the evidence

for both the embodied and the transcendental ego is the same. We also cannot say,

without lapsing into solipsism, that it is "the sense, 'truly existing Others'," which "is eo

ipso the existing Other for me in the transcendental attitude" (italics added, see above,

p. 30). If the constitution of sense is the constitution of being, then this "existing

Other" exists for me simply as my product.

We can express the above in terms of the demand for the constitution of the

actuality of the Other. The demand arises from the original project of securing the

objective validity of knowledge. Such knowledge, in implying universality, implies

Others as co-perceivers of the world. It, thus, implies the transcendence of the world
 Notes
63

in its second, intersubjective character. To establish this transcendence, we require, as

we indicated, the Other in the actuality of his sphere of ownness. We require him

actually being there, while I am here, co-perceiving the world so as to give it its

intersubjectively established sense. Now, such an actuality is not that of the Other as a

constituted sense. Qua constituted, he is the result of my acts of perception. For the

Other as a co-perceiver, I require him as a co-constituter. Thus, to establish the

objectively known world, which is Husserl's goal, I must see it as intersubjectively

constituted. For this, however, I require the Other, not as a constituted sense, but

rather as an actually distinct, active bestower of such sense.

It is easy to see that the constitution which begins with the Other as embodied

cannot satisfy this demand. As Schutz remarks, even if we accept all of Husserl's

arguments with regard to such constitution, "... still no transcendental community, no

transcendental We, is ever established. On the contrary, each transcendental ego has

now constituted for himself, as to its being and sense, his world and in it all other

subjects including myself; but he has constituted them just for himself and not for all

other transcendental egos as well" ("The Problem of Transcendental Intersubjectivity in

Husserl," op. cit., p. 76). This view follows insofar as the constitution which does

begin with the embodied Other is not a genuine reaching out to the Other as

transcendental, but rather a solipsistic "self-externalization" of each constituting

individual. To make this explicit, we note that the pairing that forms the basis for such

constitution is one between two worldly transcendencies. It begins with the pairing of

my own and the Other's body. Now, for Husserl, the transcendental subject "conceals

in itself all worldly transcendencies ... constituting them in itself." Both bodies, then,

as worldly transcendencies, are within the constituting subject. It constitutes them

within its sphere of ownness as real unities -- i.e., unities of sense. Thus, the original

pairing is between two constituted products, products which point back to a single
 Notes
64

constituting subject. This implies that, proceeding from this basis, both this subject's

sense of his own and his sense of the Other's body as animate and human spring

directly from himself. That this is, in fact, the case can be gathered from Husserl's

assertion that it is through an "analogous transfer of sense" that the Other is constituted

as human. In such a transfer, the senses which do pertain to the primordial ego (in his

"typical" ways of behaving) function in the constitution of the Other as an embodied

subject. The Other, therefore, must appear via the transfer as a self-externalization of

the senses constituted by the first.

The same point can be made by observing that three of the four terms involved in

the"analogizing apperception" of the Other result directly from the "productivity" of

my experiencing as a primordial subject. They are 1) my own bodily appearing, 2) the

bodily appearing of the Other, and 3) my own sense of self as governing my body. As

in the mathematical analogue -- the Euclidian proportion -- the three elements

determine the value of the fourth. The fourth element, the Other as subject of his body,

has a value expressable only in terms of the three. Since the three are senses valid for

myself (and not for Others as they have not yet been constituted), the Other, here, is

only for myself. The same point follows in the reduplication of this process which

creates a plurality of Others for me. Insofar as I do not consider them as independently

constituting -- but rather transfer to them my own processes -- the being and sense of

the world that is their correlate seems to keep the status of something constituted for

myself alone.

Once again, we come to the problem of presupposing rather than demonstrating a

shared world of meanings. Insofar as a transcendental ego confronts an embodied ego,

such a world must be presupposed. The sense of this embodied Other as constituting --

if such a sense be granted -- occurs only by transfer from the original primordial ego.

To the point, however, that a transcendental ego seeks to confront another ego as
 Notes
65

genuinely transcendental (as independently sense giving), all basis for this

presupposition escapes us. In the latter case, our acts of sense giving could be

understood as concealing, rather than as revealing, the Other's actual sense bestowing

acts. In the former case, the problem does not arise, but only because we do not

present the Other as actually like ourselves -- i.e., as independently sense bestowing.

Here, we may recall that a completely independent sense bestowing ego is

"absolute" in its sense giving function. It is, when regarded on the primitive level of its

constitutive process, totally active. This action results, as we said, in the production of

the very data required for sense constitution. Thus, given that such constitution does

not require an "outside," what is constituted must ultimately be regarded as an

externalization of the constituting self. With this, we can see why, on the descriptive

level, the Other can only appear through a transfer of sense from the primordial ego.

The description, we can say, has been shaped by Husserl's desire to make it conform

with his idealistic doctrine. The necessity imposed by such doctrine is apparent.

Given its position that the ego's sense of being affected results from its own activity of

positing itself in the world, the Other that it finds in this world must be a result (via a

transfer) of its own activity.

What this implies is that the petitio principii on the descriptive level is essentially

tied to the notion of consciousness as creative in its functioning. To the point that it is

regarded as creative in its constitutive syntheses, to that point it must be taken as

absolute in its sense giving function. It is independent. Everything else derives its

sense from its acts. It thus has by definition an asymmetrical relation to all that

appears to be other than itself. In such a context, it is obvious that a world of shared

meanings cannot be a matter of demonstration. That everything has only the meaning

that the primordial ego gives to it is presupposed in the understanding of its acts of

sense giving as independent or creative. Thus, one cannot, without circularity, proceed
 Notes
66

to establish from such given senses the sharing of senses by the ego and its Other; for

these senses cannot here count as unbiased or "objective" sources of evidence with

regard to the independent acts of the transcendental Other.

§12. The Petitio Principii and the Level Required for Intersubjective Recogntion.

What is the "transcendental clue" which appears in the above? What does the last

section's impasse reveal about the nature of being, i.e., its nature as presupposed by

intersubjective recognition? To answer such questions, let us first recall what we said

at the beginning of this chapter: it is the reduction of being to being given which

moves the petitio principii from the descriptive to the ontological level. On the

descriptive level, the petitio is the presupposing (rather than establishing) of the

givenness of the Other. The reduction of being to givenness is what makes this a

presupposition of the being of Others. Now, a regard to our previous sections reveals

what is involved in our reducing being to its givenness. Its principle is Husserl's

equation of being with sense. The equation signifies that sense is no longer to be

considered an abstraction. It is no longer to be considered as a dependent expression of

the being which transcendently affects consciousness -- i.e., independently gives it

data. What we have, then, is the denial of any independent "giver" (or being) in our

thought of givenness. Indeed, the equation of being and sense signifies that the "being

itself" is to be considered as the result rather than a cause of such givenness. It is the

sense which is constituted out of the experiences and connections of this givenness. It,

thus, can be reduced to the latter -- i.e., to its being given -- as the conditioned can be

reduced to its grounding conditions. This, of course, is the phenomenological

reduction considered as "the leading back of objective (transcendent) being to the being

of the corresponding modes of consciousness" (Celms, op cit., p. 309).

 Notes
67

The very same equivalence, we may also observe, is what shows the ontological

character of the grounding of intersubjective recognition. Such recognition

presupposes a world of shared meanings or senses. If the latter are, in principle,

equivalent to being, then what this recognition presupposes is the transcendental notion

of the being of the intersubjective world. We say "transcendental," since in the attitude

characterized by this title, being is understood as being-given. This understanding,

however, is implicit in the equation of being with sense. Granting this, we can say that

the world of shared senses is the ontological principle of the intersubjective world. It

is "hidden" insofar as we do not make explicit the above understanding, i.e., see how it

implies the equation of being and sense. It also may be called "hidden" insofar as we

do not recognize such a world as a presupposition. Here, we attempt to derive it, while

presupposing it, and, thus, wind up with the circularity of the principio principii.

Let us turn to the constituting subject, the subject for whom being is being given.

The equation of sense and being underlying this characterization has the following

implications: As we have seen, the constituting subject, at its most basic level, is not a

sense but a ground of sense. If objective being is equivalent to sense, such a subject

cannot be regarded as an entity in any individual, objective sense. It must, rather, be

considered as a ground of such entities. This means that the level at which we

recognize the Other as transcendental must itself be appropriate to his nature as a

ground. It has to allow us an access to the Other, not as a sense -- i.e., as a "real unity"

posited as an individual existing in the world -- but rather as a ground of such. To

indicate the most striking characteristic of this level, let us recall that the transcendental

subject, conceived as an ultimately creative ground, "does not acknowledge an

outside." This implies that the level where we do recognize him as an ultimate ground

is one where, in a yet to be determined manner, we are "inside" of him.

 Notes
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How is the approach to this level, the level of the "inside" of the Other possible?

Contrary to the position of the Cartesian Meditations, the approach cannot be through

the process of constituing the Other. Two objections stand in the way of this view.

The first is that constitution is a process that results in sense. Yet the actuality of the

Other which is required for Husserl's purposes is, as indicated, not that of a sense, but

that of a constituter of sense. What is required, in other words, is the givenness of those

experiences and connections which result for him in sense. The second objection

concerns the fact that constitution, transcendentally viewed, is the process of the self-

externalization of consciousness. The result of constitution is the positing of beings --

including the being of the human subject -- which are taken as having external relations

to one another. The result, in other words, is the positing of beings which are

understood as acting and suffering the actions of beings outside of themselves.

Constitution, then, takes us away from, rather than towards, the level where, as inside

of the Other, we recognize him as an ultimate ground. Not constitution, but rather its

reverse is, thus, required. We need a movement from sense back to its ground, a

movement from externality of beings back to the primitive grounding level which first

results in beings with external relations.

With this, we have an indication of how we should approach the level required

for intersubjective recognition. As we have stressed, the reduction is the reverse of

constitution. This means that the approach must be provided by a radical

understanding of the reduction. To simply suggest the nature of this understanding, we

can observe that for Husserl, in his last years, the reduction is characterized as allowing

us "to discover the absolutely functioning subjectivity, to discover it not as human, but

as that which objectifies itself, at least at first, in human subjectivity" (Krisis, 2nd

Biemel ed., p. 265).11 The claim here is that the human subjectivity, whose worldly
 Notes
69

being is presupposed along with the world of meanings it shares, can itself be grounded

by reductively turning to this ultimate subjectivity.

 Notes
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CHAPTER II
THE GROUNDING OF THE THING AND THE EGO

§1. The Reversal of the Seinsrede.

According to our last chapter, when we think of consciousness as creative, there

is the thought that such consciousness does not acknowledge an "outside." Fink put this

as follows: "The world becomes understandable as the aggregate of the end results of the

constitutive life processes of transcendental subjectivity; it is, thus, not outside of this

life as such. And we further recognize that the idea per se of an 'outside' situated beyond

constitutive being is in principle senseless" (Ms. "Die Idee einer transcendentalen

Methodenlehre--Ein Entwurf einer VI. Meditationen zur E. Husserls 'Meditationens

Cartesiennes'," Aug. - Oct. 1932, ed. Dr. Holl and Dr. Ebeling, Freiburg, hereafter

referred to as "Proposal," p. 172; F., 172). 1 The implications of this view are quite far-

reaching. They concern the significance, within the phenomenological context, of such

notions as creation, created being, and consciousness considered as creative.

Thus, with regard to the first, we have to say that "creation" cannot be

understood in terms of external relations -- i.e., relations involving an outside. Thus, we

cannot understand it in terms of the theological schema of a creatio mundi ex nihilo --

i.e., a creation of the world out of nothing by a god who is transcendent or external to

what he has created. In fact, if we take "individuality" and "exteriority" as terms

characterizing the "natural" attitude's description of being, then the relation in question

does not seem to involve the type of being which this attitude describes. This implies

that the totality of beings considered by the natural attitude is not an "absolute" totality.

There is, in other words, something beyond it. If by the word, "ontology," we refer to

the study of individual beings, then such a study does not embrace the phenomenological

notion of an all-inclusive "absolute." In Fink's words, "While the worldly concept of the
 Notes
71

'absolute' is an ontological concept, i.e., signifies a totality of [individual] beings, the

phenomenological concept of the absolute cannot be characterized as ontological -- i.e.,

does not signify a totality of beings" ("Proposal," ed. cit., pp. 172-173; F., 173). It does

not because, in the phenomenological perspective, the all-inclusive absolute includes a

relation which is not ontological. The totality of individual, worldly beings is, itself,

related to what cannot be considered a worldly being. This last is the creative

consciousness which does not, like such worldly beings, have an outside (See Ibid., p.

177; F., 178-179).

The import of this for our notion of created being is expressed by Husserl in

terms of a "reversal." The reversal involves what in itself is primary and what we take to

be primary when, in the natural, pre-phenomenological attitude, we apprehend the world.

In Husserl's words,

There is, thus, a reversal in the usual sense of the discourse about being. The being
which for us is first is, in itself, second -- i.e., it is what it is only in "relation" to the first.
It is not as though a blind ordering of laws had ordained that the ordo et connexio rerum
must direct itself according to the ordo et connexio idearum. Reality, both the reality of
the thing taken singly and the reality of the entire world, essentially (in the strong sense)
lacks independence. It is not something absolute in itself. It is not something binding
itself to another in a secondary way. Rather it is absolutely nothing in an absolute sense.
It has no "absolute essence" whatsoever. It has the essential nature of something which is
only intentional, only consciously known or presentable, only actualizable in possible
appearances (Ideen I, Biemal ed., p. 118).

Carefully read, this passage makes the following assertion: Objective being --

understood in the natural attitude as "reality" -- is essentially dependent. In the natural

attitude, objective being is the individual entity "in itself." As such, it is taken by this

attitude as "absolute" -- i.e., as independent. It only "binds itself" -- or forms relations --

 Notes
72

to another entity in a "secondary way." The relations depend on the self-subsistent

entities that are related, not vice versa. In opposition to this attitude, Husserl claims that

such being is only secondary. It essentially depends upon consciousness.

Fink expresses this claim in a number of ways. It involves, first of all, "... the

recognition that being possesses the constitutive dignity of an end product, a result ..." of

the constitutive activity of consciousness. ("Proposal," ed. cit., p. 173; F., 173). This

recognition involves a reversal insofar as it involves the thought "... that what we had

taken as the non-relative and ultimately independent totality of beings presents in truth

only an abstract layer of constitutive becoming, that the universe of beings, the world, is

only a relative 'universe' which is, itself, related back to transcendental, constituting

subjectivity" (Ibid., p. 171; F., 172). As Fink observes, such a thought involves a

reversal in the very sense of being. Being, understood as individual entities, can no

longer have the sense of something absolute in itself. In other words, the "totality of

beings" can no longer be taken as that which functions as an ultimate ground. If this

totality is only a relative universe, if it is dependent on something beyond its individual

members, it must be thought of as resulting from what is other than these -- i.e., from

what is not, itself, a being. In Fink's words:

The central, fundamental thought of transcendental idealism is: Being is, in principle,
constituted in the processes of the life of transcendental subjectivity. Not just the being
with transcendence's type of givenness but also, just as much, being as immanence --
indeed, the whole world taken as the ensemble of the immanent interiority of
experiencing life and the transcendent outside world -- is a unitary constitutive product.
Transcendental idealism is best characterized through the description: "constitutive
idealism." While worldly idealism attempts to explain being by means of being, the
ontological world-thesis of transcendental idealism presents the interpretation of being by
means of the constitution which is "before being" (Ibid., p. 196; F. 201).
 Notes
73

The significance of this for the nature of the consciousness which is considered

to be creative is readily apparent. As already indicated, this consciousness cannot be

considered a "worldly being." If it could, it would not be that which, for Husserl, is

"first," but only that which is "second" -- i.e., exists "in 'relation' to the first." In other

words, it would show itself as dependent. Once again, the applicable principle is

Fichte's: "The ground lies, by virtue of the mere thought of a ground, outside of that

which is to be grounded." Thus, the ground and the grounded cannot have the same

nature. To the point that the former shows the nature of the latter, it shows itself not as a

ground, but as in need of a ground -- i.e., as dependent. Granting this, and granting as

well that the characteristics of worldly being are singularity and externality of relations,

these characteristics cannot be applied to consciousness as a ground. As ultimately

constituting, it cannot be conceived as an individual being, i.e., as a being that has

external relations with other individual beings.

If we accept the above inference, then the question we are faced with is that of

the nature of absolute consciousness in a positive sense. To indicate the answer for

which this chapter will lay the groundwork, we can say that the consciousness which is

truly absolute -- i.e., independently creative in its constitutive function -- is

consciousnsess conceived as a singulare tantum. Insofar as it does not acknowledge an

outside, it does not exist as a "numerical singular" -- i.e., as one among many. It exists

simply as one. Such singularity excludes in principle the notion of membership in a

plurality of similar individuals. For such singularity, there are no others which are

similar. This characterization applies at once to the consciounsess (or ego) which is

taken, not as an individual entity, but as the necessary and sufficient ground of the

totality of individual entities. As a necessary ground, it is indispensable for world

constitution. As a sufficient ground, it has no need of anything else for its constitutive

activity. Its notion as necessary and sufficient thus excludes the notion of another,
 Notes
74

distinct co-constituter of the world since the assumption of two self-sufficient grounds of

the world would rule out our calling either of them "necessary." Either would suffice

and neither would be indispensable. With regard to the creatively constituting ego, we

must, then, say with Husserl: "In an absolute sense, this ego is the only ego. It is not

meaningfully multipliable; more precisely expresed, it excludes this as senseless" (Ms. B

IV 5, "Zur Finks '6' Meditation," 1933-34, p. 26).

With this, we may ask how far this uniquely singular ego is our own. Can we, in

our action of constitutively "making sense" of the world, claim to be uniquely singular

grounds of this sense? Can we, in Husserl's words, say "I am the only one (der Einzige);

whatever exists for me is my own from the singularity (Einzigkeit) in which I function"

(Ms. C 2 I, p. 3, Aug., 1931). To answer these questions, we must engage in a detailed

investigation of the phenomenological notion of singularity. We must examine both the

unique singularity which ultimately grounds and the numerical singularity (the one

among many) which is grounded.

Our present chapter will engage in an investigation of the latter. It will inquire

into the phenomenological notion of being an individual -- a one among many. What do

we mean when we say that a thing exists in this way? How far can the ego itself be

described as individually defined? To explore these questions in phenomenological

terms is, for Husserl, to speak of constitution. It is to describe the constitution of the

individual existence of both the thing and the ego. Ultimately, our sense of the

constitutive stages which must obtain for the ego to be individually defined will give us a

sense of its existence prior to such stages -- i.e., its existence as pre-individual. It will

thus lead to the subject of our following chapters: the investigation into how, in a

positive sense, the ego can be called singular and yet not be taken as an individually

defined member of a class.

 Notes
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§2. Denken and Erkennen in Kant and Husserl.

At times, Husserl expresses a close sense of affinity with the Kantian method of

philosophizing. He writes, for example, "... the revolution in the very nature of

philosophical thought which Kant promoted and allowed to arise in the powerful,

perhaps even violent proposal of a new science is still the challenge of the present; and

this new science is our own task and a task which can never be abandoned in all the

future" ("Kant und die Idee der Transzendentalphilosophie," May 1, 1924, in Erste

Philosophie (1923/1924), Erste Teil, Kritische Ideengeschichte, ed. R. Boehm, The

Hague, 1956, hereafter cited as EP I, p. 240). This revolution is Kant's proposal of "a

transcendental, scientific theory of the essential possibility of the constitution of a true

objectivity in transcendental subjectivity ..." ("Kants Kopernikanische Umdrehung ...,"

Feb., 1924, EP I., p. 227). As he elsewhere expresses this, Kant "brought about the

recognition that the world, which is for us, only exists for us in our cognition and that the

world for us is nothing but that which, under the title of objective knowledge, takes shape

in our experiences and thought" (Ms. F I 32, "Natur und Geist," 1927, p. 114a).

The reason for this sense of affinity is easy to see. For both Kant and Husserl,

knowledge of an object is "knowledge by means of connected perceptions (verknüpfte

Wahrnehumungen)" ("Kritik d. r. Vernunft," B 161, Kant's gesammelte Schriften, Berlin,

1911, III, 125). For both, an object is defined as "that in whose concept there is unified

the multiplicity of a given [total] intuition" (Ibid., B 137; ed. cit., III, 111). What this

signifies is that both understand the object as an "accomplishment of the synthesis of

consciousness" -- i.e., as a unity formed by synthesizing (or "connecting") perceptions.

Its appearing sense, or "concept," is a function of its being one in many, i.e., its being a

unity of the "multiplicity" of perceptions that form an ongoing "given intuition."

In spite of this agreement, there is, as noted in the last chapter, a considerable

difference between the two philosophers. The gulf separating them can be said to spring
 Notes
76

from Kant's limiting these definitions to the phenomenal object. Implicit in the notion of

this limitation is the thought of the object as existing beyond its phenomenal or sensible

presence to consciousness. For Kant, this is the thought of the object as a noumenon, a

thing in itself. He writes that "... this concept [of a noumenon] is necessary to prevent

sensible intuition from being extended to things in themselves and, thus, to limit the

objective validity of sensible knowledge (for the remaining things to which it does not

apply are specifically called 'noumena' in order to show by this that such knowledge

cannot extend its domain over everything which the understanding thinks)" ("Kritik d. r.

V.," B 310; ed. cit., III, 211, italics added). What we have in this passage is a distinction

between Denken -- i.e. the "thought" of the understanding -- and the "knowing," the

Erkennen of objective knowledge. As we quoted Kant, this last is knowledge "through

connected perceptions." The two are not the same since Denken, rather than terminating

in such knowledge, can be employed to show its limitations. Here, Denken is considered

as reaching beyond what can be sensibly given and, with this, as thinking the sensible

object as a "mere" representation of what, in itself, is not sensibly given. In other words,

it is conceived as intending (though, not knowing) the nominal object in itself. It is such

an intending which limits the status of sensible knowledge to that of knowledge of

appearance rather than reality.

Now, as Ricoeur notes, this distinction between Denken and Erkennen does not

occur in Husserl's later work (See Husserl, An Analysis of his Phen., ed. cit., pp. 186ff).

His rejection of Kant's notion of the nouminal thing in itself is also a rejection of the

Kantian limitation of the applicability of sensible knoweldge. Thus, the intention of

thought cannot pass beyond the sensibly given since, for Husserl, the latter is not really

separable from the thing in itself. In other words, the Husserlian collapse of the

distinction between Denken and Erkennen is implicit in his position that the being in

itself of an object coincides with its being for us in its phenomenal presence. Because of
 Notes
77

this, such presence cannot be thought of as concealing the object "in itself," but rather as

constituting its very being. Here, the intention of thought is understood as reaching its

final goal when it comes to rest on the connections occurring in our perceptual

experience of the object. Thus, in its intending the "in itself" of the object, it misses the

mark if it attempts to go beyond this experience rather than seeking a point of unification

-- a one in many -- immanent within the perceptually given.

§3. The Positing of the Thing as an Existing Individual

To fully understand the above, we must, first of all, qualify De Boer's assertion

that, in transcendental phenomenology, "sense is being itself." This assertion is based on

Husserl's statements that "all real unities are unities of sense ... Reality and world are

simply titles for certain valid unities of sense ..." Husserl, after making these remarks,

concludes that "the world itself has the whole of its being as a certain 'sense'" -- i.e., the

sense which arises in consciousness considered "as the field of sense giving" (Ideen I,

Biemel ed., pp. 134-135). Yet, later in the same work, he feels compelled to refine this

position. If we take sense as that which we can objectively describe and conceptually

express with regard to some entity, then its apprehension is not that of the individual

existence or the "thisness" of an object. The thesis of such individual existence (or

being) concerns not the sense, but rather the "bearer" of this sense.

Before we cite Husserl on this point, a brief glossary of his terms is necessary.

The individual acts by which we apprehend an object's features are termed noeses. Their

correlates are termed noema. They are the senses by which we conceptually express

what we find in the object. The sum of such senses gives us the sense of the object as a

whole. It is an all-inclusive noema which contains all that we can say in objectively

describing a thing. It is the sense of its descriptive, conceptually expressible predicates.

Husserl terms it the noematic object and writes in its regard: "The 'sense,' which we have
 Notes
78

repeatedly spoken of, is this noematic object 'in the how' along with everything the above

characterized [objectively oriented] description is able to discover within it and

conceptually express." "This 'how' ('Wie')," he explains, "is to be taken as precisely what

the present act prescribes as actually pertaining to its noema" (Ideen I, Biemel ed., p.

322). It is, in other words, the sum of senses which conceptually express "how" the total

object is presently understood. As a final term, we have the noematic nucleus. This is

considered nuclear because it is the relatively unchanging "core" of the noematic object.

As such, it consists of the most stable of the object's descriptive predicates. This nucleus

is the object's "sense in its mode of fullness" (Ibid., p. 323). It is what we can expect to

encounter when we see the object. It is its stable sense as given in the "fullness" of

intuition.

This sense, Husserl stresses, is not the "meant as such." This means that it is not

what we intend when we focus on the "thisness" of the object -- i.e., on its individual

existence. In such an intention, our "... glance passes through the noematic nucleus." It

passes through it to the "most inward moment of the noema" (Ideen I, Biemel ed., p.

318). The latter "is not the nucleus itself (within the objective sense) which has just been

described. It is rather something which, so to speak, forms the necessary central point of

the nucleus and functions as the 'bearer' of the particular noematic characteristics which

pertain to it -- i.e., as a bearer of the noematically modified characteristics of the 'meant

as such'" (Ibid.).

What exactly is this bearer (Träger) of the noematic sense? Husserl uses a

number of terms to describe it. He calls it "... 'that which is identical,' the 'determinable

subject of its possible predicates' -- the pure X in abstraction from all predicates" -- in

abstraction, "... more precisely, from the predicate noemata" (Ideen I, Biemel ed., p.

321). He writes: "It is the central point of unification we spoke of above. It is the point

of connection or the 'bearer' of the predicates ... It must necessarily be distinguished from
 Notes
79

such predicates, although it must not be placed beside them and [in this way] separated

from them; just as, contarrywise, they are themselves its predicates, not thinkable without

it, yet separable from it" (Ibid., p. 320). When it is so distinguished from the predicates,

it is simply an "empty X." The terminology here is recognizably Kantian (Cf. Kritik d. r.

V., A 104-105). One may ask, what is the meant as such, when conceived as an "empty

X," if not a Kantian thing in itself? The conception of this last is one of something

beyond the object's intuitably presentable sense. But this seems to be what we intend

when we think of this X as empty. If this interpretation were correct then our last section

would be incorrect. Husserl, like Kant, would have to distinguish Denken from

Erkennen. He would have to take this X as the object of the thought (Denken) which

passes beyond what we can conceptually know (Erkennen). Husserl, however,

unambiguously rejects this suggestion. Far from pointing to a nouminal entity existing

for itself, the X exists within the senses which an entity has for us. It is only something

for consciounsess since it is only posited when the senses which we can predicate of the

entity close up together in an individual unity, a unity in which something identical is

recognized (See Ibid., pp. 321-22).

Stated most generally, Husserl's position is that the X is empty, but it is not

beyond what we can experience. It is empty when considered in abstraction from

experience. Yet as something set up by the connections between experiences, it has as its

condition the presence of these experiences. Thus, to think of the X as something

beyond experience -- and, hence, as beyond the senses which are also part of experience

-- is to give it a certain misplaced concreteness.

If, for a moment, we limit the term "experience" to refer to the perceptions we

have of an object, the relation between the X and these perceptions can be expressed

through a familiar Kantian distinction. In his Prologomena, §18-§19, Kant distinguishes

between two elementary types of judgment. The first is a judgment expressed in the
 Notes
80

form "I see ..." The second type, to take the simplest case, is a judgment which has the

form "there is ...," i.e., there is something there of which I am having perceptions. Now,

the assertion that the object is there is distinct from the assertion that we are having a

perceptual experience. As Husserl observes, the object cannot be identified with any of

its individual perceptual experiences. In the flow of such experiences, it "continually

'presents itself differently'; it is 'the same,' but it is given with other predicates, with

another determining content ..." (Ideen I, Biemel ed., p. 320). This happens when it

shows itself "from different sides," and when, in the context of our different perceptions

of it, we take different "determining contents" as the predicates of the assertion "I

see ... ." The object, as the unity of this perceptual multiplicity (i.e., as the subject of

different judgments of perception) cannot be identified with any of the individual

perceptual experiences which make up this multiplicity. (See Ibid.). Indeed, as

something transcendent, as something whose meaning involves the notion of an

indefinite continuance of such experiences, it cannot be identified with the sum of the

perceptions we have actually had of it. If the object cannot be identified either with an

individual perceptual experience or with the sum of such experiences, then the thesis of

the object as there (the object as existent) cannot per se be a thesis (or judgment) of

perception. Rather than concerning the contents of our individual perceptual

experiences, it concerns their unifiability within a single referent. Regarded in terms of

their contents, individual perceptions could be perceptions of any number of objects.

What makes them, within the flow of experience, perceptions of one and the same object,

i.e., the object considered as an individual existent, is the ordered connections which they

exhibit.2

According to Husserl, the same point holds when we refine this analysis and

speak of our experience of the senses of the object. The basis of such senses are the

multiplicities of perceptions directed to particular features of the object. The noetic acts
 Notes
81

(noeses) which apprehend such features are acts of synthesis. They are a grasping of one

in many. As such, the object of such acts is a sense -- a sense which we employ in the

conceptual description of some particular feature. To grasp the sense of the object as a

whole, a further act of synthesis is required. Here, we unify the senses (the "predicate

noemata") which are the results of our first set of acts. Now, the object of this higher

level synthesis can be described as the noematic object -- i.e., as simply the sum of the

object's senses. But this, our earlier description, does not do justice to the process by

which it is apprehended. Our object is not simply a collection of senses, but rather their

synthetic unity. It is a "real unity" considered as a "unity of sense." Its status as a one in

many means that inherent in it is a "point of unification" -- i.e., Husserl's "empty X."

The same thing can be said of the senses we obtained on the lower level. They, too, as

the results of distinct acts of synthesis, must be considered as inherently containing their

distinct X's -- i.e., their points of unification. In each case, we have to say that it is the

ordered connections between the synthesized elements (be they perceptions or senses)

which allow us to assert that they pertain to one and the same thing. Thus, as Husserl

writes with regard to such an assertion: " ... distinct senses are related to the same object

only insofar as they are capable of being ordered into unities of sense, unities in which

the determinable X's of the unified [lower level] senses achieve a coincidence with each

other and with the X of the total sense of the ongoing unity of sense" (Ideen I, Biemel

ed., p. 322).

The above indicates how Husserl can make what appear to be contradictory

statements in describing our intention to the "meant as such." In intending an object's

individual existence, our glance, he asserts, must pass "through the noematic nucleus" --

i.e., through its given, appearing sense. Yet, in almost the same breath, he claims that it

does not really pass through it, but rather comes to rest on what is inherent in this sense.

The terminus of this glance is simply "the most inward point of the noema." The key,
 Notes
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here, is Husserl's genetic understanding of sense. If a sense is a one in many which has

been synthetically constituted, then, in intending the X which is the noema's "point of

unfication," we do not really pass beyond it. The thesis of the X, which is the thesis of

the object's individual existence, is also the thesis of its sense. In positing the latter, we

posit it as a one in many; but to posit this is also to posit the X as a "point of unification."

This is the understanding which allows Husserl to say that a real unity --i.e., an

individual existent -- is a unity of sense. Yet, the same understanding, with a certain

change of emphasis, also allows us to speak of passing beyond the object's sense in

intending its existence. When we genetically conceive of sense as a result of a process,

then this "point of unification" is, as Husserl says, a "point of connection." Here, its

notion reaches beyond sense to include the ground of sense -- i.e., the ordered

connections which allow sense to be generated as such a point. Thus, if we do

distinguish the ground from the grounded, it is correct to say that in our intending the

object as a "this" -- i.e., as an individual existence -- we do pass beyond its noematic

nucleus or sense.

There is a certain tie between Husserl's position and the traditional metaphysics.

Aristotle notes that what is truly individual is capable of standing as a subject of

predication, but is not capable of being predicated of anything else. Those entities which

are capable of being predicated of others are not individuals (i.e., singular things) in a

primary sense. They are rather universals with regard to those entities which receive

their predication (See Categories, 2a, 11--4b, 19; Metaphysics, 1078b, 30-32). The same

thing is implied by Husserl when he speaks of the noematic object as the sum of what we

can describe and conceptually express about some object. The meant as such -- i.e., the

existing individual -- is not what we intend when we think of the predicates (the

individual noemata) composing this description. To intend the meant as such, we must

intend the "point of connection" between the predicates. Thus, individually regarded, the
 Notes
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senses which we predicate of the entity could just as well be predicated of some other

entity. In this, they display their "universality." They are not individual existents but are

rather prior to such. They give rise to the latter through their coming together to form a

"unity of sense." The same point can be made, mutatis mutandis, with regard to the

constitutive elements of such senses. The perceptual experiences from which they arise

must also be regarded as pre-individual and universal. Their universality consists in the

fact that, taken in isolation, they are not tied to a definitie "this." They can, as we said,

be cosnidered to be experiences of any number of distinct objects.

The claim that senses and perceptual experiences are prior to individual

existence indicates the distinction with the traditional (Aristotelean) metaphysics. For

Husserl, such priority signifies that they are the constitutive elements out of which the

actual object arises. Their interconnections constitute the actual being of this object. As

Husserl expresses this:

Everywhere we take "object" as a title for the essential connections of consciousness. It

first comes forward as the noematic X, as the subject of sense (Sinnessubjekt), as the
subject of the different essential types of senses and propositions. It further comes
forward as the title "actual object" and is, then, a title for certain eidetically considered
rational connections in which the unitary X, present in such connections, receives its
rational positing (Ideen I, Biemel ed., p. 356).

Later, when we come to consider the role of time in the constitution of the "actual

object," this position will have to be modified. For the present, however, Husserl's

meaning is clear. If, indeed, an object is only a "title for the essential connections of

consciousness," to distinguish its actual existence from its sense, we must point to the

connections which ground its sense. It is these which give rise to "actual object"

considered as "the unitary X." In other words, the connections ground "the point of
 Notes
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connection" which stands as the existing subject of our various predicates. Husserl's

idealism is equally clear. He can claim that the actual object is only a "product" of

consciousness because it is simply a point of connection -- i.e., a sense filled one in many

established by such connections. Thus, it only occurs by means of the connected

elements. It is there -- i.e., existent -- because it is "present in such connections." What

this signifies is that our grasp of these elements is not to be taken as simply our particular

(merely subjective) apprehension of the thing. The connected elements, (i.e., the

"determining contents" and senses,) pertain to the thing itself. This follows since without

them there would be no connections and hence no "this," no individual existence, which

we would be apprehending.

§4. Constitution and Rationality: The Reinterpretation of Ontology.

Husserl, in our last cited passage, speaks of "rational connections" and "rational

positing." For Husserl, when we consider an entity a product of consciousness, it must

also be considered as inherently rational. The basis of this doctrine is to be found in the

relation he draws between the positing which results in such a product and rationality.

He treats these two as mutually equivalent notions. Thus, the positing act is called by

him an "act of reason" -- i.e., a "rationally motivated" act (Ideen I, Biemel ed., pp. 335-

36). As for reason itself, it is understood as "reason in the widest possible sense, a sense

extended to all types of positing" (Ibid., p. 348). The equivalence beween reason and

positing signifies the "general insight ... that not just 'truly existing object' and 'object

capable of being rationally posited' are equivalent correlates, but so also 'truly existing

object' and the object which is capable of being posited in an original, complete thesis of

reason" (Ibid., p. 349). The full assertion, here, is that the thesis of positing, which is the

being there (Dasein) of an object, is equivalent to the thesis of reason which focuses on

the object as something "rationally motivated," i.e., as something which can be rationally
 Notes
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inferred from given conditions. Here we may observe that if we do accept this assertion,

we also accept the final statement of Ideen I. This is the claim, in Husserl's words, that

"an all-sided ... solution of the problems of constitution" -- i.e., problems involving the

positing of being -- "would obviously be equivalent to a complete phenomenology of

reason in all its formal and material formations ..." (Ibid., p. 380).

The "formal" formations referred to are those of formal, symbolic logic. They

concern the reasoning process in abstraction from all content. As for the "material"

formations, the reference is to what Husserl calls a logic of content. This concerns the

role of the material contents of our perceptions in determining our inferences. The

fundamental notion of such a logic is that of the dependence of one type of content on

another. Thus, the essential dependence of the contents of color and spatial shape on that

of extension allows us, given the former, to infer the necessary presence of the latter.

Similarly, the pitch and loudness of a tone are contents considered to be essentially

dependent on the presence of a third material content, that given by our sense of duration.

Here, too, the relations of dependence between such contents serve as a basis for the

corresponding material inferences.3

There is a twofold root to Husserl's identification of our formal and material

processes of reasoning with the processes by which we constitute being. There is, first of

all, his identification of a real entity with the unity of sense. The unity of the former is

identified with the X conceived as the unity of the predicate senses. Regarded

phenomenologically, this identification implies that the thesis of the being of an object is

always simultaneous with the thesis that it possesses some unified sense. As we have

seen, we posit being through the "making sense" of our given perceptions, i.e., through

their manifesting one in many characters. The presence of such characters is the

presence of the "predicate noemata" -- i.e., the predicate perceptual senses. Their

unifiability within a single subject of predication gives us, on the one hand, the "total
 Notes
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sense" of the object and, on the other, the "X of the total sense" -- i.e., the object

considered as there, as an individual being. Granting this, we can say that the laws

governing the unifiability of senses within the total sense are also the laws governing the

constitution (or positing) of being. With this, we come to the second part of the twofold

root. It is the identification of the laws by which we unify senses with the laws of logic

-- i.e., the laws of formal inference as given by symbolic logic and those of material

inference as given by Husserl's logic of content. By following such laws, we can avoid

both formal and material contradictions. Positively speaking, these laws allow us to

bring about that formal and material unity of senses which, when intuitively present, is

present as the unity of an individual being.

By virtue of this identification, Husserl's conclusion follows. We can say that

the rationality that finds objective expression within such "logical" laws is inherent

within the process of constitution. We can also say, with Husserl, that "the ordo et

connexio rerum must direct itself according to the ordo et connexio idearum." It is not,

as he says, a "blind ordering" which makes this necessary. It is rather the fact that the

forms of unification given by our formal and material logics are simply representations

of our activities of connecting senses so as to produce the thesis of the underlying X --

i.e., the individual thing. Because of this, logic has a field of applicability in our

sensible, material world. The logical relations existing within it -- relations which allow

us to infer and reason about it -- are actually expressions of the laws governing its

constitutive grounding.

This, we may observe in passing, is what makes Husserl's commission of a

petitio principii fatal to his account of the positing of Others. According to the above,

the violation of a rule of logical inference is also a violation of a law of constitutive

grounding. This follows insofar as such laws of inference are simply mirrors, so to

speak, of the laws by which the phenomenal presence of entities is established. The
 Notes
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notion of such mirroring can be made more vivid by imagining for a moment what it

would be like to live in a radically "irrational" world. Such a world would be one in

which nothing, broadly speaking, made any "sense." The phenomenological picture of

such a world is given by applying Husserl's assertion that "all real unities are unities of

sense." A completely senseless, irrational world would, thus, be one where nothing --

i.e., no real objects -- could be posited on the basis of our experiences. Our perceptions

would not fit together; no synthesis -- at least no objective synthesis of them -- would be

possible. By way of contrast, a rational world is one where we can "infer" objects from

our perceptions. Our perceptions are indicative of something being there affording us

perceptions. Since a number of objects result from the operation of the same laws of

"inference" -- i.e., have the same factors for their constitution -- such a world also allows

us to encounter similar objects. We have the possibility of forming logical classes such

as all A's, all B's, etc. A rational world, thus, begins to afford us, with its stable and

similar groups of objects, the possibilities of the logical inference which is based on the

relations of the "essences" -- i.e., the universally applicable senses -- of these objects. 4

The implication of this mirroring on Husserl's description of the positing of

Others should be clear. If his description is accurate and if it does involve the circularity

of reasoning implicit in the principio principii, then it indicates that the conscious

processes by which we attempt to recognize the Other are themselves logically faulty.

Given that this violation of logical inference is also a violation of the processes of

constitution, the Other at this point could never appear. Such positing would simply

have the status of an empty pretension; for the very laws of grounding by which the

Other achieves his "being for us" would have been violated. 5

Intimately involved in his identification of the logical with the constitutive laws

is what Husserl calls the "transcendental interpretation of all ontologies." To understand

this interpretation, we must first sketch out the general terms by which Husserl defines
 Notes
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ontology. We begin by noting that, in its broadest sense, "onto-logy" is conceived by

Husserl as the study of the laws growing out of the logos or essence of each of the onta.

More closely regarded, the notion of ontology is tied to that of a "region," the region of

the entities for which it is considered the ontology. The region, itself, is defined by an

essence, the essence being that which specifies the type of objects which pertains to a

specific region. Thus, to take Husserl's example, the essence "physical thing" specifies

the objects which belong to the region of "physical nature"; and the laws springing from

what is involved in this notion are the subject of the ontology of physical nature. Such

general essences can, of course, overlap. Thus, the notion of an animate physical thing

can be included under the notion of physical thing, and the region of the former can be

considered as a subdivision of the latter's region. Similarly, the essence of a physical

thing can be included in the more general essence of a perceptual thing. A crucial

element in this description is the distinction Husserl makes between "formal" and

"material" ontologies. According to him, there are as many material ontologies as there

are general essences with a specifically definable "material" content. There is, however,

only one formal ontology. The essence which defines its region of objects does not have

a definite, material content, but is rather, as Husserl writes, "a completely 'empty' one, an

essence which, in the matter of an empty form, fits all possible essences ..." (Ideen I,

Biemel ed., p. 27). This materially empty essence is that of an "object per se." As for

the region defined by it, "it is actually not a region, but rather the empty form of a region

as such ..." (Ibid.). Insofar as it specifies the formal relations of the objects of all

possible regions -- this by specifying the formal laws that pertain to the essence "object

per se" -- this "formal ontology also contains the forms of all possible ontologies -- i.e.,

all 'proper,' 'material' ontologies ..." It does so, Husserl adds, because it "prescribes to

them all a common formal structure" (Ibid.).

 Notes
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These ontologies, as should be readily apparent, represent the world in its

rational structure. As for their laws, they are identified by Husserl with the laws of

material and formal logic. Thus, the laws springing from the most general of the

material essences, that of the perceptually appearing thing, are those of the logic of

content. They are the laws concerning the unifiability of perceptual meanings in sensible

objects. As Husserl expresses this in the Investigations, they are "concerned with the

compatibility of meanings in a 'possible' meaning, i.e., a meaning compatible with a

corresponding intuition in the unity of objectively adequate knowledge" (LU, Tüb. ed.,

II/2, 106). Such compatibility concerns the possibility of positing an object (and, hence,

objectively knowing it) with the perceptual senses designated by such combinations of

meanings. To turn to formal ontology, its laws are those of "pure logic" (Ideen I, Biemel

ed., p. 27). Its purity is purity from specific contents. Since it concerns simply the

notion of object per se, it is able to proceed analytically and to symbolize with letters the

elements whose relations of compatibility it explores. Such elements include the

perceptual contents of objects insofar as "object per se," understood formally, embraces

everything that can be a logical subject of an assertion. The fact that the object must

include both a material and a formal compatibility of contents is indicative of the above

mentioned prescriptive role of formal with respect to material ontology. 6

As indicated by its name, the "transcendental interpretation" of ontology begins

with the reduction. The reduction, itself, is a move from the constituted to the

constituting; it is a move from the onta, considered as constituted unities, to the

phenomenologically discoverable experiences and connections responsible for their

presence. Now, this reduction of the onta requires a corresponding reduction (and

reinterpretation) of the logos or essence pertaining to each. The essence must become

understood as the essence of the reduced onta. Once we accept this, "then," as Husserl

writes, "all ontologies, as we expressly demand, fall to the reduction" (Ideen III, Biemel
 Notes
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ed., p. 76). We have, in other words, their transcendental reinterpretation. In a general

sense, this is an interpretation in which "everything presented by the sciences of the onta,

the rational and empirical sciences (they all can be termed 'ontologies' in a broadened

sense insofar as it is evident that they all concern unities of 'constitution') resolves itself

into phenomenological elements ..." (Ibid., p. 78). Specifically, this means that "the

basic concepts and axioms" of the ontologies "allow themselves to be reinterpreted as

certain essential connections of pure experiences" (Ibid., p. 77). As he also expresses this

a few lines later, "The transcendental interpretation of all ontologies would also belong

here, the interpretation, which can be accomplished through the phenomenological

method, of each proposition of ontology as an index for quite definite connections of

transcendental consciousness ..."

Husserl's position, here, is that an individual thing is simply an "index" for a

factually given set of "transcendental connections" (Ideen III, Biemel ed., p. 77). As for

its essence or logos, this points to the type of connections required to set up a thing of a

definite type. Such essences are the "basic concepts" of ontologies insofar as they

determine regions of objects. Their interpretation as "essential connections of pure

experiences" points to the fact that certain connections are essentially demanded if

objects of a given type (and, hence, of a given region) are to be posited. With this, we

have the corresponding interpretation of "each position" (or law) of ontology. They

become understood as laws giving us the formal rules for connecting experiences

according to certain types. The "quite definite connections" they point to are those

required to have an object with a certain essence.

Two points follow from the above. The first is that it establishes a certain

identity between essence and thing -- i.e., between the species and its instance. The

identity is such that given the thing, we also have its predicable essence. This follows

because this essence is simply a formal representation of the connections by which we

 Notes
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apprehend the thing. In other words, the transcendental thought of the thing involves the

thought of the esence insofar as 1) the former is simply the thought of a unity established

by the connections of experience and 2) the latter is the thought of the "essential

connections" which allow of the positing of this unity. Thus, to take Husserl's standard

example, the thought of an individual, real existent involves the thought of the

perspectival type of connections which permit this existent to appear. Since such types

are, for Husserl, objectively interpretable as essences, we can say that the possibility of

apprehending this existent brings with it the correlative possibility of predicating an

essence (or species) of it. The second point involves the fact that not just essence but

also the logical laws are implicitly given with the thing. These laws, which involve the

formal and material comatibility of contents, have been reinterpreted. They now count as

laws specifying the "definite connections of transcendental consciousness" -- i.e., those

connections which permit the positing of an object with compatible contents of a certain

kind and, hence, as an object of a certain species. Thus, like the species or essence, the

possibility of such laws being applicable to the thing is correlated to the possibilty of the

thing's apprehension. This cannot be otherwise, given that the laws in question are, in

fact, laws governing the essential possibilities of the thing's positing. It is, we can say,

their inherence in such positing which makes it a "rational act." For Husserl, then, the

actuality of the thing, i.e., the actuality of its connections, is a sign of the actual operation

of these laws. "Rationality" and "constitution" are, in other words, simply descriptions of

the ordered, lawful process by which consciousness grounds the presence of the thing.

With this, we may note that we have answered one of the questions we posed

about "being an individual -- a one among many." We asked: "What do we mean when

we say that a thing exists in this way?" Its individual existence we can now say is a

function of its presence as a unity established by the connections of experience. Since

this involves the thought of the thing's essence, we also have the thought of the thing's
 Notes
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being one among many. Its individual existence includes the possibility of its being a

member of a class, one of a number of similar individuals to which the same essence

(and the laws underlying this) can apply.

§5. The Presumptiveness and Ideality of the Thing.

Our account of Husserl's conception of the thing would not be complete without

our adding two further elements: the presumptiveness and the ideality of its individual

existence. To begin with the first, its conception always occurs in tandem with that of

the thing's rationality. The notions of its presumptiveness and rationality are, in fact,

developed simultaneously by Husserl. Both have their roots in the notion of the thing as

an "empty X" -- i.e., a point of unification established by the ordering of the connections

of consciousness. According to this doctrine, the thing itself, understood as such an X, is

not equivalent to its appearances. Thus, its appearances cannot completely represent it.

As Husserl expresses this position: "The positing on the basis of the bodily appearing of

the thing is, indeed, a rational positing, but the appearance is always a one-sided,

'incomplete' appearance" (Ideen I, Biemel ed., p. 338). This one-sidedness arises

whether we take "appearance" (Erscheinung) as a single view of the thing or as the senses

synthesized from a number of such views. Indeed, it occurs even if we take this term to

denote the sum of such views and resulting predicate senses. Thus, Husserl writes:

"There are objects -- and all tanscendent objects, all 'realities' included under the title of

nature or world, belong here -- which cannot be given with complete determinability and

with a similarly complete intuitability in a finite consciousness" (Ibid., pp. 350-51).

Since, in fact, the very definition of a transcendent object is that of an entity which

surpasses or transcends the finite sum of our actual view of it, this last statement follows

as a matter of course. Its implication, with regard to our positing of the thing is equally

clear. To quote Husserl again:

 Notes
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A real thing, a being with this sense, can in principle only "indequately" appear within an
appearance which is finite or limited. Essentially connected with this is the fact that no
rational positing which rests on such an inadequately presenting appearance can itself be
"final," "incontrovertible," that no rational positing, in its particularity, is equivalent with
the straight-forward assertion, "The thing is actual," but only to the assertion, "It is
actual" on the supposition that the continuation of experience does not bring about
"stronger rational motives" which exhibit the original positing as one that can be
cancelled in the wider context. The positing is rationally motivated only through the
appearance (the incompletely fulfilled perceptual sense) considered in and for itself in its
singularity (Ibid., pp. 338-39).

In this passage the Husserlian theses of the presumptiveness of the thing and its

inherent rationality are thought together. Their common root is the notion of the thing as

an X. In such a notion, the thing appears as a unity established by the forms of

unifiability -- the rational, logical forms. It, thus, appears as inherently rational -- i.e., as

a result of positing conceived as a lawful, "rational" act. The same doctrine, however,

separates the thing from the views and senses we have of it. In placing the being of the

thing, not in the latter, but rather in the ongoing unity established by their connections, it

makes such views or senses (or any finite sum thereof) an inadequate representation of

this being. The doctrine, then, which asserts the rationality of the posited entity, gives

this rationality a factual or contingent character. This character follows from the position

that such positing is "rationally motivated only through the appearance," but such

appearance, as distinct from the thing, can never fully justify this positing. If it could,

then the thing would not be the X. It would, on the contrary, be equivalent to its

appearance -- i.e., to what Husserl calls its "fulfilled perceptual sense." It would, in other

words, be the same as the noematic object or the sum of its objective senses. Its non-

identity with the latter is, however, involved its definition as something showing itself as
 Notes
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the same in different "appearances" -- i.e., as the same object for all the multiple senses

which its experience may afford us. It is inherent in its notion of being, not the noematic

sense conceived as our present understanding of the object, but rather the "bearer" of

such. So conceived, it can never exhibit the finality of a closed concept, i.e., that of a

completely conceived and defined sense which is not open to addition or revision.

For Husserl, the proper conception of the thing as this "bearer" is given, not by a

closed concept, but rather by a "Kantian idea." "The perfect givenness of the thing ...,"

he writes, "is traced out as an 'idea' (in the Kantian sense) ..." The idea involves the

notion of "an infinite process of appearing which is absolutely determined in its essential

type." This infinite "continuum of appearances," he adds, "is thought of as governed

throughout by a fixed, essential lawfulness" (Ideen I, Biemel ed., p. 351). The

significance of this language is apparent from the above discussions. Such lawfulness, as

essential, pertains to the type of connections which are present in this infinite continuum.

The connections are conceived as occurring according to the logical (or constitutive)

laws of ordering which gives us a real unity -- i.e., a thing which is definitely determined

according to its type. Given the tie between the thesis of the X and the "rationality" (or

essential lawfulness) of the positing act, we can say with Husserl, "this continuum is

more closely defined as an all-sided, infinite one which is composed, in all its phases, of

appearances of the same determinable X ..." It is, in other words, a continuum "in which

one and the same constantly given X is continually and harmoniously determined 'more

closely' and never 'otherwise'" (Ibid.)

This idea of the perfectly given thing is not of a reality which we can intuitably

encounter. The idea involves the notion of infinity; yet our actual, intuitive encounters

are always finite. Thus, we can say that the idea is "Kantian" precisely because it points

to a reality which is beyond the finite limits of our experience. To see what this implies

as to the notion of the thing, we must return to Husserl's basic premise that being is
 Notes
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equivalent to being given. The implication, here, is that the thesis of a thing's being is

never absolute, never something that can be established by its being intuitibly given to

us. Were we, in such a context, to attempt to absolutize the being of a thing -- i.e., to

think of it as completely given -- we would not transform it into a being in itself. The

thing is perfectly given only in idea. Thus, if being is equivalent to being given, its being

is only that of "an idea in the Kantian sense." As such, it is a being for us, a being for the

subjects who, reflecting on their experience, develop this idea. Once again, we have a

context where the thesis of the being in itself of a thing is thought of as coincident with

the thesis of its being for us. The context, in other words, demands that we acknowledge

that the thing, considered "in itself," is only "for us."

Summing up, we can say that the thesis of the thing as an X -- i.e., as an

individual existent -- is one that involves three interdependent notions: those of its

rationality, presumptiveness, and ideality (or being for us). Insofar as these

characteristics apply to every constituted entity, this is an interdependence which we

shall meet again.

§6. Consciousness as Grounding the Ego -- the "Reality" of the Real Ego.

When we come to the question of the grounding or constituting of the ego, a

remarkable textual difficulty faces us. Throughout his career, Husserl repeatedly asserts

that the ego or subject is a constituted, "founded" unity. Yet, beginning with the Ideen,

he also progressively develops the doctrine that the ego, considered as a "pure ego,"

cannot be taken as constituted. There is not, as some scholars imagine, a progressive

development from one position to another. 7 Rather, from the time of the Ideen, both

positions are maintained and developed.8 To resolve the paradox springing from such

conflicting positions, we must carefully distinguish the different concepts Husserl has of

the ego. As we shall see in a subsequent chapter, the multitude of these concepts is a
 Notes
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function of our notion of time. Because of its involvement, indeed, its identification with

the temporal process, the notion of the ego is ultimately to be explained in terms of all

the meanings we give to this process.

At this point, we are not in a position to establish this conclusion. The work of

description must first precede. Let us first distinguish the "real ego." Broadly speaking,

this ego is understood as the objective identity of a subject in the intersubjective world.

Its "reality" is its thereness for everyone -- i.e., its "objectivity," understood as that which

I and my fellow subjects regard. We can also say that the real ego is the individual

human being with all the characteristics which form his objective "worldly" identity.

These include his social and professional position, his family ties and his personal

features. The latter include both his bodily appearance as well as his "real" psychological

habits and dispositions. When a person is asked, "Who are you?", he may reply, "I am a

businessman, I am John's father, I am tall, a hard worker," and so forth. All of these

remarks are considered answers to the "worldly," intersubjectively verifiable question of

personal identity. As the facts of growth and education make apparent, what is referred

to here is not a pure, unchanging self. It is a self that is progressively built up or

constituted throughout a lifetime. This signifies, from the transcendental point of view,

that "... real egos, just like realities in general, are merely intentional unities" (Ideen II,

Biemel ed., pp. 110-111). For Husserl, they are the constituted products of "pure egos,"

acting both individually and collectively (See Ibid., p. 111). Passing from such objective

"intentional unities" to their subjective, but not yet "pure," correlates, we have the second

way Husserl characterizes the ego.

§7. The Ego of Habitualities or the "Personal" Ego.

"Habitualities" refers, here, to the noetic components of constantly maintained

theses. A habituality is a "lasting opinion," a subjective disposition to perform a thesis in

 Notes
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the same way as before. An ego that has habitualities thus possesses what we objectively

describe as a consistent character. It possesses a consistent attitude towards the world

and consistently acts on this. Such consistency is a necessary condition for its self-

identity. As Husserl writes: "I also exist in these [my position takings] and am a priori

the same ego insofar as I specifically exercise a necessary consistency in my position

takings; every 'new' position taking establishes a lasting 'opinion' or a theme (a theme of

experience, of judgment, of joy, of will) so that from now on, as often as I apprehend

myself as the same as I previously was, or as the same who is now and was previously, I

also hold fast to my themes, take them up as actual themes just as I have previously

posited them ..." (Ideen II, Biemel ed., p. 112).

Husserl has written a great deal on this habitual or person ego. His position can

be summarized by describing this ego's essential characteristics. The first of these is that,

like the real ego, this subjective counterpart is a progressively constituted ego. It is, in

other words, an ego of change and growth which is built up out of a series of successive,

yet lasting position takings. In this constitution, one position taking -- i.e., one

"validation" or acceptance of a position -- serves as a foundation for the next. In

Husserl's words:

I exist as an ego of validities for me, validities acquired from myself. I also exist as an
ego of constantly new anticipations of future validities which actively spring from myself
-- i.e., the new setting of goals, new intentions, aims whose active realization is a basic
foundation (Urstiftung) for new acquisitions, a foundation for what is voluntarily done,
yet done as that which continues to be valid in the manner of something accomplished
(Ms. B I 13, VI, p. 8, 1931).

Examples of what Husserl is pointing to are almost too numerous to cite. We must "do"

arithmetic in order to do higher math. The elementary propositions of any science are

always the first and serve as the basis for what follows. The same can be said for our

general understanding of the world. What we learn in chidhood games continues to serve
 Notes
98

us in basic (though often hidden) ways as we go about the practical business of being an

adult. It gives us the bases -- such as the ability to speak a language -- of our "present

practical possibilities" (See Ibid.).

The second feature of this ego concerns its constant striving for unity in its

growth. Insofar as its identity is constituted out of its lasting opinions -- i.e., its

"convictions" -- the striving is actually directed to the maintenance of its personal self-

identity. Thus, as Husserl writes: "I exist in my convictions (Überzeugungen). I

preserve my one and the same ego -- my ideal ego of the understanding -- when I can

constantly and securely continue to strive towards the unity of the aggregate of my

convictions ..." (Ms. A VI 30, p. 54b, 1926).

An important corollary of this position is that this striving for personal unity in

one's lasting theses is also a striving after the unity of the world. Thus, Husserl continues

the last sentence with the remark that his personal unity is maintained "when an object-

world remains constantly preserved for me with the open possibility of being able to be

determined more closely." The connection between the two is that between the positing

and the posited -- i.e., between the noetic and the noematic. Given this tie, the unity of

the subject in its positing is correlated to the unity of the posited world. Husserl

expresses this position in a lecture on Kant. He writes:

As an ego, I am necesarily a thinking ego; as a thinking ego, I necessarily think objects;

thinking, I necessarily place myself in relation to an existing world of objects; and further
the pure subject (the subject of the egological performance accomplished purely in the
understanding) is of such a character that it can only preserve its self-identity when it
can, in all its processes of thought, maintain the objectivity it thinks of as constantly self-
identical. I preserve my egological unity, the unity of my subject, only insofar as I
remain consistent in my thinking. Thus, if I have once posited something -- an object -- I
must, then, in every further positing of thought remain with this positing. It must be such
 Notes
99
that my object can and must continually count as identical for my thinking ("Kant und
die Philosophie des Deutchen Idealismus," ca. 1915, EPI, Beohm ed., 398).9

This position, which is ascribed to Kant, appears as Husserl's own in later manuscripts.

As an example, we may take a text from 1931. According to Husserl, a personally

unified ego, "... has constituted beforehand, in all its experiences, a unity of the

experiential world ..." This means that "as a person, it thus has within itself a universal

unity of life, one embracing both the actual and the possible, one which is, with respect

to the validities of experience and the experiencing habituality, a universal and

anticipatory unity. It possesses, in its streaming life, the active style of an ego constantly

preserving itself through correcting itself as it takes positions based on experience. This

is the unity of a person as someone who always possesses a world: the one, single world

as a fact" (Ms. E III 9, ca. Nov. 15, 1931, HA XV, Kern ed., p. 404).

Husserl's mention of the ego as preserving itself through self-correction brings us

to the third point of this description. As we recall from our discussion of the object as an

intentional X, the being of the object is always presumptive. Its thesis is, thus, always

open to the possibility of correction or revision. If we attempt to conceive it as

absolutely given -- i.e., as an absolute being -- then our conception is simply that of an

"infinite" Kantian idea. For Husserl, the same point holds with regard to the world of

objects. He writes: " ... everything in nature and nature itself, according to its essence, is

not an absolute being, a being which a knower could absolutely possess and comprehend;

it is rather an idea related to the correlative idea of a freely available universe of possible,

harmonious experience." This cannot be otherwise, given that the individual objects of

this nature are, absolutely considered, only "ideas." Thus, Husserl continues: "This last

idea" -- i.e., that of nature -- "is related to the essence of a necessarily presumptive,

supposed objectivity, that of an intentional X furnished with an open indeterminancy. It

 Notes
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is related as a possible idea of a systematic universe of such presumptive, supposed

objectivities." It is, in other words, an idea of ideas. Like its components, the individual

X's, "such an idea is a necessary, subjective product albeit a rationally motivated one ... it

is inseparable from the basis that motivates it, inseparable from the experiences which,

even as 'possible' and not actual experiences, have their tie to the related [experiencing]

ego ..." ("Beilage XXXII, 1921 or 1922, "Zur Phänomenologie der Intersubjektivität,

Zweiter Teil: 1921-1928, ed. Iso Kern, The Hague, 1973, p. 280; hereafter cited as HA

XIV).

The import of these remarks with regard to the habitual ego should be apparent.

Given the tie of this ego to the world, its "self-correction" by which it preserves itself is

also a correction and preservation of the world. Now, the thesis of the world is in need

of "constant correction" precisely because the world is never absolutely given. As a total

thesis, it always remains an "intentional X furnished with an open indeterminacy."

Considered as absolute, it has simply the status of a "mere idea." The same thing must be

said of the ego positing this world. Given that it can preserve its self-identity only to the

point that "it can maintain the objectivity it thinks of as constantly self-identical," the

presumptiveness of this latter is also its own presumptiveness. In other words, if the

thesis of the existent, self-identical object can be completely realized only in idea, the

same must be said of the ego which thinks it. As Husserl says of "the ego which

constantly and harmoniously preserves itself," "... this ego is actually a mere idea" (Ms. B

I 13, VI, p. 9, 1931). It exists as "an idea giving the goal (Zweckidee) of the rational

self-development of the ego, of its genuine and true 'self-preservation'" (Ms. A V 21, p.

105b, 1916). Husserl explains this by adding: "The ego necessarily strives (as an ego)

for self-preservation and in this there lies -- implicitly -- a striving towards the ideal of

absolute subjectivity and the ideal of an absolute and all-around perfect knowledge. A

presupposition pertaining to this is that there be a world, at very least, that there be a
 Notes
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physical nature which harmoniously preserves itself ..." (Ibid., p. 106a). This

presupposition is, as we have stressed, one which can never be finally established. The

posited "physical nature" exists only as an ideal; and, hence, we have the similarly ideal

status of the positing ego which is correlated to this world (See Ms. B I 13, VI, pp. 9-10,

1931).

This leads us to enlarge on a final feature of the "personal," "habitual" ego. We

just said that the presumptiveness of the world is also a presumptiveness of the ego which

preserves itself by preserving its world. Now, the possibility of this preservation is never

guaranteed. To recall a few of Husserl's statements on this point, let us note that for him,

"... the being of the world ... exists only as the unity of the totality of appearances which

continues to confirm itself ..." (EP II, Boehm ed., p. 404). Given that this unity involves

an indefinite continuance of appearances, it is never -- except in idea -- finally

established. This means that the world's present "bodily self-givenness never excludes,

in principle, its non-being" (Ibid., p. 50). In other words, we have the continuing

possibility of the collapse of our thesis of the world. As Husserl expresses this:
It is conceivable that experience -- and not just for us -- teems with inherently
unresolvable contradictions, that experience, all at once, thus shows itself as obstinately
opposed to the demand that the things which it posits should ever harmoniously persist.
It is conceivable that experience's connections forfeit the stable rules of ordering
perspectives, apprehensions and appearances and that this actually remains in infinitum
the case, in short that there no longer exists a harmoniously positable and, thus, existing
world (Ideen I, Biemel ed., p. 115).

For Husserl, this possibility is also the possibility of the collapse of the ego. This

follows, once we admit with Husserl, "The assertion that I remain who I am as the same

transcendental ego -- as the same personal ego -- is equivalent to the assertion that my

world remains a world" (Ms. B I 13, VI, p. 4, Dec. 15, 1931). Granting this, "One can
 Notes
102

also say: a complete dissolution of a world in a 'tumult' [of experiences] is equivalent to

a dissolution of the ego ..." (Ms. F IV 3, p. 57a, 1925).

With this, we can say that the same three features which characterized the

constituted thing are also displayed by the individual ego of habitualities. The latter, too,

is characterized by rationality, presumptiveness and idealty. Thus, its positing, like that

of the world, is dependent on a rational, stable ordering of experiences. In order to

preserve the world and, hence, itself, it must exhibit the "essential types" of connections

which allow us to posit definite types of unity within multiplicity. Further, insofar as

such positing involves a certain presumption with regard to the maintenance of such

unities in future experiences, its own thesis, like that of the thing, remains a "presumptive

supposition." It has, thus, absolutely considered, only the status of an ideal -- i.e., that

traced out by a Kantian idea. This does not mean that this ego is itself a thing, but only

that the conditions for the being of an individual thing are, correlatively, its own

conditions as an individual existent. In other words, as an ego of position takings, it

exists only as a noetic correlate of the posited, noematic world.

Here, what is ultimately indicated is the fact that both the subjective experience

and the experienced objectivity are correlatively constituted at one and the same time. 10

The correlativity of noesis and noema indicates, in other words, their parallel

constitution. As Husserl writes: "In the constitutive sense of all life in which the origin

of all being is found, we discover that subjectivities and objectivities constitute

themselves in parallel and that the subjectivities are constituted unities just as much as

their objectivities are" ("Gemeingeist II," 1918 or 1921, HA XIV, Kern ed., p. 203).

This parallel constitution points back to a correlativity of the conditions for their

constitution.

§8. The Pure Ego as the Pure Subject of the Personal Ego.
 Notes
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The pure ego has a special relation to the personal ego. It is not identical with

the latter and yet, as Husserl asserts, it is essentially tied to it. Their lack of identity is

indicated by the fact that the pure ego is capable of being adequately grasped by an act of

reflection. Each time such an act directs itself to it, it grasps it completely and grasps it

as something identically the same.11 In contrast to this, the personal ego, which has only

the status of an infinite, Kantian idea, can never be completely grasped. Husserl writes:

"The pure ego is not the person. How do I distinguish them? The personal ego is the

identical element in the change of my ego-life, of my being active and being affected. It

is not adequately given in reflection; it points, in principle, to the experiential data related

to the infinite horizon of my past life and to an infinitude of advance [in the future]

towards the completion of this data ..." (Ms. A VI 21, p. 20b, 1927?). Now, the pure ego

does not require such an infinitude of experiences for its complete apprehension. Indeed,

as Husserl elsewhere writes: "To know that a pure ego is and what it is, an ever so great

accumulation of self-experience is no more informative than a single experience of a

straightforward cogito. It would be senseless to think that I, the pure ego, might not

actually exist or might be quite different from the ego [presently] functioning in this

cogito" (Ideen II, Biemel ed., p. 104; cf. Ms. F III 1, p. 240b, ca. 1915). Husserl's point,

here, is that the accumulation of fresh experience does not add anything new to our

knowledge of the pure ego since this ego, in fact, always shows itself as identically the

same. In other words, "the pure ego, as is evident, is numerically, identically the same in

all the absolutely (phenomenologically) apprehended cogitos which I apprehend in

memory and is the same as the ego which can be discovered and grasped in a reflection

directed to this apprehending, and so forth" -- i.e., with regard to a further reflection

directed to this act of reflection and so on ad infinitum. (Ms. A VI 21, p. 21a, 1927?).

This continuous sameness of the pure ego indicates its non-perspectival

givenness. It is not a unity within a multiplicity. In contrast to such synthetically

 Notes
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constituted unities, it "... does not present itself just from one side; it does not manifest

itself only in particular characteristics, sides, moments which, on their part, only appear

[in the multitude of their perspectives]; rather it is given in absolute selfhood in its non-

perspectival unity. It can be adequately grasped in the reflective turning of one's glance

back upon it as a center of functioning" (Ideen II, Biemel ed., pp. 104-05). It is, then, the

non-perspectival simplicity of this ego which allows us to grasp it in a single reflection.

Since such an ego does not involve any multiplicity, it "evidently" must remain

"numerically, identically the same."

The contrast, here, between this simple unity and the synthetic unity of the

personal ego could not be greater. The latter preserves itself by correcting itself. The

very notion of the personal ego's identity involves change and multiplicity. Indeed,

because of its heterogeneity with the unchanging pure ego, there is, Husserl admits, a

certain duality in what I mean by my self-identity. Such an identity, conceived of as

composed of the pure and personal aspects of the self, cannot be considered as a

"substantial" one. In Husserl's words: "The ego's identity in the change of position

takings and its identity in the change of habitualities, in which I am a past-present ego, is

not yet a substantial identity. For precisely within such change, I am the same and yet

constantly another; the same, so it appears, as an empty pole and another insofar as I

have had constantly to abandon, change the 'self' who has taken a position" (Ms. E I 7,

1920's, HA XIV, Kern ed., pp. 296-297). The "empty pole" referred to here is the ego

considered as a pure, non-perspectival unity. It remains the same even as the ego of

habitualities shows itself from a different "side" by taking a new position.

Despite this difference, there is an essential connection between the personal and

pure egos. The connection is formed by the cogito, the "I think" that is the act of

position taking. Insofar as the personal ego is made up of position takings, it necessarily

involves the "I" of the "I think." The latter is not "the 'self' who has taken a position" --
 Notes
105

i.e., the self that is the very act of position taking and changes with the change of this act.

It is rather the self which is the subject of all such acts. It is the identical subject who can

be said to have different positions. If this latter is thought of as pure, then according to

Husserl, it must be included in the personal ego. Thus, after enunciating the differences

between the two egos, he goes on to say: "This pure ego, however, lies included in the

personal ego; every act or cogito of the personal ego is also an act of the pure ego" (Ms.

A V 21, p. 21b, 1927). Given that the "real ego" is simply a noematic correlate of the

personal, position taking ego, the same thing can be said with regard to the real ego. In

other words, we can say, "there are as many pure egos as there are real egos ...," the latter

being understood as "constituted in the pure streams of consciousness [and] posited by

the [respective] pure egos ..." (Ideen II, Biemel ed., p. 110).

To see more clearly the nature of the connection between these three different

characterizations of the ego, we must examine the doctrine of the ego as the "pure"

subject of the cogito. The initial context of this doctrine is Husserl's description of the

intentional character of consciousness, its character of being "consciousness of ..." As

Ideen I describes this, "There lies in the very essence of every experience not just that it

is a consciousness but also whereof it is a consciousness and in what determinate or

indeterminate manner it is this ..." (Ideen I, Biemel ed., p. 80). According to Husserl,

this character involves the notion of the ego and its "glance" (Blick). As he writes on the

following page: "When an intentional experience is actual, i.e., performed in the manner

of the cogito, then the subject (the 'ego') 'directs' itself within it to the intentional object.

There pertains to the cogito itself an immanent 'glance at' the object, which, on its part,

springs from the 'ego,' which therefore can never be absent." According to Husserl, this

ego is not "an experience among experiences." It is not, in other words, something

"arising and again disappearing ... with the experience ..." (Ibid., p. 137). Neither is it

the "glance" of the ego. As Husserl explains this, "The ego seems to be constantly,
 Notes
106

necessarily there ... its 'glance' goes 'through' every actual cogito to the objectivity. This

ray of the glance (Blickstrahl) is something that changes with each cogito, shooting forth

anew with the new cogito, disappearing with it. The ego, however, is something

identical. Every cogito, at least in principle, can change, can come and go ... But, as

opposed to this, the pure ego seems to be something necessary in principle; and, as

something absolutely identical in all actual and possible change of experiences, it cannot

in any sense be taken as a real component or moment of the experiences" (Ibid., pp. 137-

38).

This statement simply repeats in somewhat greater detail the passage we quoted

about the heterogeneity of the pure and personal egos. The pure ego remains the same

even as the personal ego shows itself differently -- i.e., avails itself of fresh experiences

and, on this basis, exists in the performance of new cogitata or position takings. The

ground of its absolute identity has also been noted. It is its non-perspectival character.

This means, as Husserl writes in 1921, it is not, like the thing, "a one-sided, founded

unity which, in the constant passage from distinct to distinct, is only describable in such

[passage]" (Ms. E I 6, June 1921, HA XIV, Kern ed., p. 50). Now, a founded unity is a

constituted unity. It is founded on individual experiences by virtue of being constituted

through their connections. What about the ego which does not appear perspectivally --

i.e., which does not appear through a perspectival ordering (or connecting) of

experiences? Insofar as it lacks the connections by which constitution is accomplished, it

is obviously not a constituted unity. Its continual sameness is, in other words, simply a

reflection of its non-constituted status. What this signifies with respect to our experience

of this pure "experiencing self" is put by Husserl as follows: "The experience of the ego,

the experience of an experiencing self, has an essential pole of unity which is not

constituted in these [experiences] as is the case with all temporal being where in the

continuity of filled time a changing or unchanging unity constitutes itself in the filled
 Notes
107

duration" -- i.e., the duration "filled" with perceptual content (Ibid., p. 49). The implicit

claim, here, is that as non-constituted -- i.e., as something not given through the temporal

ordering (and connecting) of experiences -- this ego is not experienced as a temporally

extended being. As Husserl explicitly writes: "The self, which is the 'thoroughly'

identical, is not temporal or even temporally extended in the same sense as the

experiences ..." (Ibid.).

What we have here is a further contrast between the pure ego and the "concrete

self" -- i.e., the personal or habitual ego. Husserl takes the latter as constituted through

the connections occurring between experiences. The experiences themselves are

regarded as occupying distinct positions (or extended stretches) in successively ordered

time. Because of this, the ego they constitute is experienced as enduring through such

successively given temporal positions. In distinction to this, the non-constituted, non-

perspectivally appearing ego lacks the very basis for appearing as an enduring,

temporally extended entity.12

§9. The Pure Ego as Dependent on Experience, as a Constituted Singular Relative to

its Individualizing Experience.

Let us now take note of another aspect of Husserl's doctrine of the pure ego. It is

one which, in distinction to the above, leads him to claim that the pure ego can, in a

certain "relative" sense, be considered as constituted. The origin of this claim is his

continual insistence that the givenness of the pure ego is dependent on the givenness of

experiences. This dependence, itself, is a function of the ego's position as the "pure

subject" of the cogito. As before, the general context of Husserl's remarks is his

description of the intentionality of consciousness. If consciousness is always

consciousness of some object, i.e., some "cogitatum," then cogito and cogitatum are

given together. With this, the pure "transcendental" ego is also given. Speaking of "the
 Notes
108

transcendental or absolute ego which corresponds to the human person," Husserl remarks

that "I am an awake soul by virtue of a specific egological structure facing the structure

of the pregivenness of the world." Since this pregivenness is formed by the experiences

whose connections constitute the cogitata, the "awake" ego of the cogito exists only when

it possesses such experiences and connections. In Husserl's words, "... the transcendental

ego is a relative ego, an egological structure facing what is pre-given to the ego ..." (Ms.

C 3 II, p. 37, Nov., 1930, italics added).

Husserl also expresses this dependence in terms of the contentless character of

the pure ego. The necessity for the ego's lack of "material," experiential content comes

from the ego's absolute self-identity. As perfectly identical, it cannot be identified with

any of the changing contents of consciousness. Hence, it appears as quite distinct from

what it experiences. Its purity is purity from such experience. As Husserl writes of this

ego, "An ego does not possess a proper general character with a material content; it is

quite empty of such. It is simply an ego of the cogito which [in the change of

experiences] gives up all content and is related to a stream of experiences, in relation to

which it is also dependent ..." (Ms. E III 2, p. 18, 1921). Such dependence is not just that

of the "awakeness" of the ego on the presence of the stream; rather it is the dependence

of it in its individuality on the stream. As contentless, the ego is not unique since it lacks

the material features which would distinguish it from another ego. In other words,

considered by itself apart from the stream, it has only the general character of an

egological structure, an "empty form" of an ego. As Husserl puts this: "One can say

that the ego of the cogito is completely devoid of a material, specific essence,

comparable indeed with another ego, yet in this comparison an empty form which is only

'individualized' through the stream: this in the sense of its uniqueness" (Ibid.).
 Notes
109

This dependence of the uniqueness of the ego on the stream has two

consequences. The first is the tie between the pure, personal and real egos. The second

is the view that the pure ego can, at least analogously, be seen as constituted.

With regard to the first, Husserl writes: "The pure ego, it is to be expressly

stressed, is a numerical singular with respect to 'its' stream of consciousness" (Ideen II,

Biemel ed., p. 110). The stream is essential for the individualization of the pure ego into

a numerical singular; it functions, so to speak, as the individualizing "environment"

(Umgebung) of this ego. Now, since this environment is a constituting one -- i.e., one

resulting in the presence of realities through the connections of the stream -- the tie of the

ego to the stream is also a tie to the realities it constitutes. As Husserl expresses this:

"The ego is only possible as a subject of an 'environmemt,' only possible as a subject who

has facing it things, objects, especially temporal objects, realities in the widest sense ..."

(Ms. E III 2, p. 46, 1921). In Ideen II, this tie explicitly involves both the personal and

real egos considered as constituted entities. According to Husserl, "... every real ego,

like the whole real world, belongs to the 'environment,' to the 'field of vision' of every

pure ego ... And with this, every pure ego ... possesses the human ego, the personality as

an object of its environment" (Ideen II, Biemel ed., p. 110). The tie between these egos

can be expressed in terms of the self-interpretation of the pure ego. If, as an individual,

it is "only possible as a subject of an 'environment'," i.e., as a subject that has facing it a

constituted world, then it can always interpret itself in terms of this world. It can think of

itself as a real ego situated among the "things, objects" of this world. It can also think of

itself as the subjective, "personal" correlate of this objective ego. What we have, then, is

a correlation of possibilities. The possibility of being a numerically singular ego is also

the possibility of having an individualizing stream of consciounsess and, with this, the

possibility of this ego's self-interpretation in terms of what is constituted by the stream.

Thus, as Husserl notes, to posit a real ego or a personal "human" ego is also to posit, as
 Notes
110

pertaining to these, a singular pure ego (See Ibid.). This follows since the presence of

the personal ego is also the presence of the constituting environment which makes

possible the presence of a numerically singular pure ego. What is ultimately pointed to

here is, as we shall see, the notion of the pure ego as a center or pole of an already

constituted "surrounding world." As such a center, it can always interpret itself as a real

and a personal ego situated within it.

If the pure ego is tied to a constituted environment, then the temptation arises to

see it as something which is itself constituted. Husserl, at times, seems to subscribe to

this position. He writes, for example, "I thus see here an essential lawfulness of the pure

ego. As the one identical, numerically singular ego, it belongs to 'its' stream of

experiences, which is constituted as a unity in unending, immanent time. The one pure

ego is constituted as a unity with reference to this stream-unity; this means that it can

find itself as identical in its course" (Ms. F III I, p. 248b, ca. 1918, 2nd italics added).

This position is repeated with reference to Kant. Husserl writes: "What is called

constitution, this is what Kant obviously had in mind under the ruberic, 'connection as an

operation of the understanding,' synthesis. This is the genesis in which the ego and,

correlatively, the surrounding world (Umwelt) of the ego are constituted. It is passive

genesis -- not the [active] categorial action which produces categorial formations ..."

(Ms. B IV 12, pp. 2-3, 1920). A close study of Husserl's doctrine reveals that these

remarks are not in contradiction to the passage from the same period which we quoted

above. They are not to be taken as asserting that the pure self-identical ego "shows itself

perspectivally," that it is, in other words, a constituted, "founded unity" in the sense that a

thing is. What is at issue in the just quoted texts is the numerical singularity of the ego.

According to Husserl, the pure ego is such a singularity with reference to the constituted

unity of its stream -- i.e., its constituted "surrounding world." As we shall see, what is

constituted here is not the ego, but rather its reference. It is this reference which first
 Notes
111

gives it its singularity as a center or pole of a surrounding world which itself has become

constituted as a singular world.

§10. How Husserl Came to Posit the Pure Ego.

To make this last point, we must first raise the question of the necessity of the

pure ego. What exactly are the functions that it performs which require its positing? As

we quoted Husserl in introducing its notion, "Every act or cogito of the personal ego is

also an act of the pure ego" (See above, ). The question, here, is of the necessity of

this "also." Let us give the general lines of the solution we shall explore. It consists, first

of all, in the claim that the pure ego is necessary as an experiencer who is distinct from

experience. Only as distinct and, hence, as "pure," can it "find itself as identical in [the]

course" of experience. As we noted above, it would not be identical if it was identified

with the changing contents of experience. To put this somewhat more radically, we may

note that there is a certain connection between being and self-identity. Real loss of self-

identity is not the change of some subject. As involving the very subject of the change, it

is to be counted as annihilation pure and simple. The underlying thought here is that the

ego must have some separation from what changes if it is to continue in being -- i.e.,

continue to find itself as in some way connected to what it was before. Now, in the

Logical Investigations, this separation is effected by a doctrine that separates act and

experience. In the Ideen, however, the intentional act of the position taking ego is

composed of the experiences that form the stream of consciousness. The necessary

identity of the ego in the latter work is, thus, seen as demanding the positing of a "pure"

ego; it demands, in other words, an ego whose purity is purity from the changing

experiences composing its changing, position-taking acts. This first claim leads quite

naturally to a second. This is that the pure ego is not required for the function of

synthesizing the stream of experiences. The pure ego is, thus, not to be regarded as a
 Notes
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synthesizer which organizes the stream into a constituted surrounding world. Insofar as

the acts which accomplish this synthesis are distinguished from itself, it is not a

constituter, but only an experiencer of an already constituted world. Hence, the acts of

the personal ego can only in an analogous sense be considered as acts of the pure ego.

This claim is strengthened by the fact that when we enter into the more basic layer of

what Husserl calls "passive constitution," we find that neither the personal nor the pure

singular ego can be considered as actively constituting.

To establish these claims, we must first engage in a comparison of the

Investigations with the Ideen. As is well known, the Investigations does not put forward

a doctrine of the pure ego. Indeed, it explicitly denies this ego (See LU, "Investigation

V," §8). Ricoeur sums up its position in the following words: "The Logical

Investigations asserted that the ego is outside among the things and that subjective life is

only an interconnected bundle of acts which does not require the referential center of an

ego" (Husserl: An Analysis ..., ed. cit., p. 22).

This does not mean that in the Investigations there is no I or ego. It does,

however, signify that its doctrine of the ego is an early form of what Husserl was later to

present under the title of the "personal ego." Thus, in the Investigations, the unity of the

ego is conceived as the unity of its acts or position takings. Essentially, this unity is a

logical one. It is based on "the pure logical laws" which, according to Husserl, spring

from "the ideas of sensibility and understanding per se" (LU, Tüb. ed., II/1, 197). As in

the Ideen, the laws springing from such ideas are simply the subjective expression of the

"rationality" of the world which is sensed and understood. In other words, the logical

laws for the unity of the posited are viewed as laws which also hold for the unity of the

ego that posits. Thus, the laws springing from the idea of sensibility are those of

material, synthetic logic. The laws whose roots are in the pure idea of the understanding

are those of analytic, symbolic logic. Noetically regarded, both sets of laws determine
 Notes
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what types of acts can come together so as to found the unity of the ego which is made

up of such acts. Concretely, this signifies that a particular type of act -- e.g., that of a

perception of color -- is taken as requiring a second act type -- here the perception of an

extension. Together with other act types which are also essentially demanded, they form

the "founded unity" which the Investigations considers as the "I" or the unity of a

consciousness which is sensibly perceiving. (See LU, "Investigation V," §4). The same

sort of position, mutatis mutandis, is expressed for the ego that understands. Its unity is

founded on the "categorial act types" of conjunction, alternation, negation, etc. -- i.e., the

types of conscious connections which are expressed by such words as "and," "or," "not"

etc. Out of such elements, logical relations such as formal implication are composed. As

for the ego which understands these relations, its unity is simply that of formal non-

contradiction. In its attempts to connect perceived objects so as to "understand" and

make logical assertions about their relations, it cannot contradict itself. If it did, it would

violate the logical unity which defines it as an understanding subject. In Husserl's words,

"An understanding without the pure logical laws would be an understanding without

understanding" (LU, Tüb. ed., II/2, 197).

As we cited Ricoeur, the ego of the Investigations is considered to be "outside

among the things." What this signifies is that this ego is understood as receiving its

sensuous data -- i.e., the data of its experience -- from transcendent sources. It, thus,

accepts itself as positioned within a transcendent world and as dependent on its entities

for its experiences. Now, if we ignore the epistemological difficulties inherent in such

"worldly" dependence -- difficulties involving the causality of the world with respect to

the acts of consciousness -- we can remain indefinitely on the egological level put

forward by this early work. Within the context of the Investigations, there are, in fact,

two main reasons why the ego need never be anything beyond the founded, logical unity

of its acts which we have just described. The first is the book's rigid separation between
 Notes
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experiential content and subjective act. Husserl asserts that he "can find nothing more

evident" than their distinction (LU, Tüb. ed., II/1, p. 383). As in the Ideen, the act is

described as synthesizing the given contents of an experience. Its action of grasping a

one in many is termed an "objective interpretation" of such contents. This means that it

makes "objective sense" of the latter by taking them as contents or "sensations" of some

object. But, here, the act is understood as one thing -- a part of an individual reality; and,

as such, it is understood as distinct from the contents or sensations which the

Investigations takes as externally provided. Thus, Husserl writes, "The interpretation

itself never ever allows itself to be reduced to an influx of sensations. It has the character

of an act ..." (Ibid., II/1, 381). Furthermore, "... under the title sensations, we understand

non-acts which at most experience an objectifying interpretation by means of acts" (Ibid,

1st Halle ed., II, 707-08). This implies that when we reflectively regard an act itself, the

sensations which its "sensuous perception" affords us are distinguished from the

sensations which we receive when we perceive an external object. The act being part of

an individual reality -- that of the subject -- and the external object being a reality distinct

from this, the contents they afford us are by definition distinct (See LU, Tüb ed., II/2,

177-8, 180). In other words, the contents springing from the "real act" are never those

which the act itself objectively interprets when it engages in external perception. This

means that we can never confuse the experiencer -- i.e., the subject as an "interconnected

bundle of acts" -- with the contents which it externally experiences. Its logical unity is

the unity of a distinct reality. As such, its is the unity of an experiencer distinct from

experience. Husserl can thus present it as a relatively self-identical unity vis-a-vis its

changing contents of experience.

The second reason for the Investigations' refusal to posit a pure ego concerns the

issue of functioning. The acts which make up its "personal" ego function by themselves

to synthesize the stream of experiences. Their action includes both the straightforward
 Notes
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perceptual synthesis of an individual object as well as the higher level, explicitly logical

"categorial synthesis." Thus, it sees no necessity to posit an ego as a synthesizer over and

above the ego which is composed of such acts.

When we come to the Ideen, we notice first of all a shift in terminology. "Acts,"

in the sense of the Investigations, are equated with "intentional experiences" (Ideen I,

Biemel ed., p. 80). These last are identified with the Cartesian cogito. Thus, just as

intentional experiences "are consciousness of something", so "it universally belongs to

the essence of every actual cogito to be consciousness of something" (Ibid., p. 70). This

equation of act and intentional experience undermines the sharp distinction the

Investigations drew between the act and the experiential contents it acts upon. This

occurs for a purpose. Husserl, in moving towards the adoption of transcendental

idealism, does not want to picture experience as something which is externally provided.

If subjective acts are taken receptive of the experiential contents which they act to

interpret, then, as just noted, the ego of such acts appears to be "outside among the

things." For transcendental idealism, however, consciousness does not acknowledge an

outside. To reach this position, Husserl in the Ideen continues the doctrine of the acts as

active synthesizers of the stream of experiences. (We leave aside, for the moment, the

question of passive synthesis). Yet, to this he adds the doctrine that the experiences of

the stream, rather than being external to such acts, are, in fact within them. Each cogito,

in other words, is understood as made up of the experiences it interprets.

This new doctrine requires a distinction between the extended intentional

experience or cogito and the individual momentary experiences that make it up. Not

every "experience," taken in the generic sense of the term, is per se intentional. In

Husserl's words: "Under experience in the widest sense, we understand everything and

anything that is to be found within the stream of pure experiences, therefore, not only

intentional experiences -- cogitationes actual and potential, taken in their full

 Notes
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concreteness -- but all the inherent moments found within the stream and its concrete

parts" (Ideen I, Biemel ed., p. 80). "It is easy to see," Husserl adds, "that not every

inherent moment within the concrete unity of an intentional experience has itself the

basic character of intentionality, that is, the characteristic of being 'consciounsess of

something'" (Ibid., p. 81). It possesses this character not by itself, but by virtue of being

an "inherent moment" of the connected unity which it forms -- i.e., by being part of the

"concrete unity of an intentional experience." We have already encountered this position

in our discussion of the empty, intentional X. Its main point is that consciousness

becomes consciousness of something only when the experiences within it exhibit through

their connections a "point of unification." Noetically, this means that the experiences

close up together to form the more extended unity known as the intentional experience.

Noematically, it means that they form the intentional unity which is the object conceived

as the "bearer" of the noematic sense.

While satisfying the demands of transcendental idealism, this new doctrine is not

without its own problems. Once we abandon the position that consciousness has its own

distinct reality and its object another, how do we distinguish between the two? As

Husserl expresses this problem: "Originally, experientially, how does consciousness

separate itself out for us? How can consciousness itself be distinguished as a concrete

being in itself, namely as what is always my consciousness ...?" (Ideen I, Biemel ed., p.

89). The problem arises because, according to the idealistic standpoint, consciousness

has no outside. Thus, my consciousness "includes the continuing perception and what is

apprehended in this, the latter being the perceived entity understood as an 'opposite' to

consciousness and as 'an in and for itself'" (Ibid.). The problem achieves its particular

urgency from the fact that according to the doctrine just presented both the "subjective"

cogito as well as the "objective" cogitatum are the results of the connections of

experience. Husserl's question, then, is how these same connections can result in the
 Notes
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distinction of my consciousness from the world, the latter being taken as its "opposite" --

i.e., as something which stands over against its conscious acts.

The answer which Ideen I gives ignores the deeper issues involved in the

constitution of time. Within its own limits, however, it can suffice for our present

purposes. It consists of a number of carefully drawn distinctions. We have, first of all,

the distinction between the individual experience and the cogito. The individual,

momentary experience is not per se intentional. The cogito, which is formed by the

connections between experiences, is intentional. A second distinction is that between the

individual experience and the "perceived entity." The latter, taken as a spatial-temporal

reality, is something which shows itself perspectivally. Its perspectives are formed by

the individual experiences which are objectively interpreted as experiences of this reality.

Such experiences are never confused with the reality since, regarded individually, they

cannot show themselves perspectivally. They cannot since perspectival appearing

manifests itself through the ordering of connected experiences. In other words, this

appearing involves a plurality of such experiences and, hence, it cannot be a feature of

the appearing of a single, momentary experience (See Ideen I, §41-§42). Now, if we

grant that the perspectival appearing of the reality involves the thought of an indefinite

continuance of such appearing, we can distinguish this reality from the cogito which

grasps it. Here, the distinction between the two is simply a function of the transcendent

quality of the reality. To posit it as distinct from the cogito is to posit it as transcending

the finite sum of the experiences making up the cogito. It is to conceive of it, at least in

"idea," as pointing beyond these to further experiences. The difference between the

cogito and the "perceived entity" is, thus, simply one between the actual experience

making up the cogito and the idea of the indefinite continuance of this experience which

allows us to posit the entity as an "in and for itself."

 Notes
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As we have already noted, such positing of the entity as absolute is tantamount to

its positing as an infinite, "Kantian idea." It is easy to see how the perspectival appearing

of a reality involves the thought of this idea. The reality which appears pespectivally is

not posited as any one of its experiences (or the actual sum thereof). It is rather posited

as an "empty X." This means that it is taken as the persisting "point of connection" of

such experiences. It is a point of connection which always demands further experiences

to subsist as such -- i.e., as their connecting point. Hence, it always distinguishes itself,

qua "X," from the definite number of experiences making up the cogito.

In terms of the Ideen and the original context of the positing of the pure ego,

three consequences follow from the above analysis. The first is that the ego which

consists of acts can no longer be considered as a relatively stable, identical subject vis-a-

vis its changing experiences. It is, in other words, no longer qualified to serve as an

experiencer which is distinct from what it experiences. Previously, in the Investigations,

it was regarded as one thing -- i.e., a separate, "sensibly perceivable" reality -- which

could exist independently of the experiences it synthesized. But now, in the Ideen, the

very cogitationes -- i.e., multiple acts of cogito -- which compose it as an ego of acts are

themselves regarded as made up of momentary experiences. Thus, as we quoted Husserl

with regard to the personal, position taking ego, it constantly shows itself as "another" as

it moves from position to position. This otherness is that of its "glance." It is the

otherness of the experiences composing this "glance" which is its cogito, i.e., its act of

position taking. Now, if we do assert that the ego must have some separation from that

which changes if it is to continue in being -- i.e., if it is not to be regarded as simply

other with each new cogito -- then we must look beyond this personal ego to find an

identical experiencer. With this, we have Husserl's motivation for positing a "pure" ego.

The doctrine that the ego's cogitationes are themselves made up of experiences leads to

the demand for the purity of the ego. Such purity is understood as a purity from such
 Notes
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changing experiences and, hence, from the changing cogitationes made up of such

experiences. With this, the necessary identity of the subject is once again secured. The

ego again appears as something that "can find itself as identical in its course." Here, let

us observe that the positing of this ego can also be regarded as part of Husserl's answer to

his question: "How can consciousness itself be distinguished ... as that which is always

my consciousness?" As self-identical, this ego always appears as my ego, i.e., as the

unchanging center to which I refer all the changing acts and experiences forming my

consciousness. Indeed, it is because the latter do refer back to one and the same

unchanging center, a center for which they form the necessary "environment," that they

can be understood as my acts and experiences.

The second consequence is that the ego which we are here motivated to posit as

pure is not posited as a synthesizer of the stream. This point can be expressed in two

different ways. We can say, first of all, that insofar as the pure ego is distinguished from

the acts which are regarded as synthesizing the stream, it is distinguished as well from

their action of synthesis. Only analogously can such acts be taken as "its" acts. A second,

more profound way to express this is to observe that, according to the above, the acts

themselves are composed or constituted out of the experiential elements of the stream.

As we quoted Husserl, the cogitationes are both "within" the stream and are made up of

"inherent moments" which are individual experiences drawn from the stream. The

significance of this view for the Investigations' doctrine of acts -- i.e., of acts' being

considered as independent synthesizers of the stream -- can be put in terms of this work's

pursuing a level of constitutive analysis which is less profound than that of the Ideen.

The Investigations explores a level of constitution in which the synthetic action originally

pertaining to the stream seems to be an independent action of the subjective acts. At the

deeper level, which is explored by the Ideen, the acts themselves appear as constituted

products of the stream. Thus, on this latter level, the stream must be considered as
 Notes
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synthesizing itself. In other words, the very acts which formally were regarded as

synthesizing the stream are now conceived as the results of the stream's own self-

synthesis.

The conclusion, then, is that neither the pure ego, which is distinguished from

the cogitationes, nor the personal ego, which is composed of such, is ultimately

responsible for the synthesis of the stream. With this, we can say that what Husserl calls

"passive synthesis" is possible precisely because both the supposed "activity" of the

cogito and the supposed "pasivity" of its experiential data are contained within the stream

itself. They are simply different layers of one and the same, self-synthesizing stream.

As Husserl expresses this, "'Passive' signifies here without the action of the ego ... the

stream does not exist by virtue of the action (Tun) of the ego, as if the ego aimed at

actualizing the stream, as if the stream were actualized by an action. The stream is not

something done, not a deed in the widest sense. Rather, every action is itself 'contained'

in the universal stream of experiences which is, thus, called the 'life' of the ego ..." (Ms.

C 17 IV, pp. 1-2, 1930).

Our third consequence springs directly from the fact that this 'life' of the ego is

not a result of the action of the ego, the fact, as Husserl puts it, that "the individual,

egological life is passively constituted in immanent time" (Ms. B I 32, I, p. 16, May or

Aug., 1931, italics added). As we quoted Husserl, the ego is "dependent" on "a stream of

experiences" -- the very stream that has now been identified as its life. This means that

the individual ego (taken either as personal or as pure) cannot be regarded as the

independent origin of the constitutive action of the stream. In other words, as dependent

on the stream which it does not actively constitute, it cannot be said to be creative of the

entities which result from the stream's self-constitution. Such entities form the

surrounding world, the environment of the individual ego. "The ego," Husserl maintains,

"is only possible as a subject of an 'environment,' only possible as a subject who has
 Notes
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facing it things, objects ..." (Ms. E III 2, p. 46, 1921). The notion that the latter are,

ultimately, passively constituted, thus, leads Husserl to assert: "In the subjectivity to

which essentially belong both the ego and the 'stream of experiences,' the lasting world

constitutes 'itself' for the ego, but the ego, as much as it participates by its activity" -- i.e.,

by its acts -- " in this constitution, does not create it, does not produce it (schafft sie

nicht, erzeugt sie nicht) in the usual sense, just as little as it produces its past life,

produces its stream of original sensibility ..." (Ms. A VI 30, p. 9b, Nov., 1921). This

statement holds for the personal ego, since, as we have seen, the acts by which it

participates in world-constitution are both within and constituted out of the "stream of

original sensibility." It also holds for the pure ego, given that it is, qua numerical

singular, essentially dependent on "its" stream.

This consequence has an important result for the analyses of our first chapter.

As we recall, the solution put forward by Husserl was bedeviled by the notion of the

creatively constituting ego. This was the ego which, in not having an "outside," had to

be regarded as the independent origin of its own sensibility. We can now say that this

concept is not that of an individual ego. This implies that to recognize the Other as an

individual is to recognize him as not being creative of the world which we share in

common. This follows since our being as individuals is a being that is dependent on the

stream of consciousness and, hence, on what is constituted out of this. The significance

of this result will be evident in a subsequent chapter when we come to propose a solution

to the problem of intersubjectivity.

Returning to the question of the necessity for positing the pure ego, we can say

that this ego has neither the necessity of a constituter of the stream nor that of a

constituted product. The first is ruled out by the ego's dependence on the stream; the

second, by its "purity" from the elements of the stream. Thus, given that the ego's purity

is a purity from experiences, it cannot be considered to be constituted out of their

 Notes
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synthesis. It is not, like the ego of the Investigations (or the later "personal," "habitual"

ego), a unity which is"founded" on experience. Such purity, however, does not rule out

its dependence. It still remains the ego of the cogito, the ego (or subject) of the

surrounding world which is presented by the ongoing cogito. If we think both its purity

and dependence together, we come up with only a single necessity for its positing: the

indispensability of a pure ego is only that of a pure, self-identical subject of a constituted,

surrounding world. Its necessity is that of an observer distinct from, yet essentially

dependent on this world.

§11. The pure ego as a Center of its Constituted Environment.

Husserl writes, quoting Kant on the just mentioned necessity, "The 'I think' must

accompany each of my representations" (Ideen I, Biemel ed., p. 138). This means, as he

later writes, "... intentional experiences ... demand their pure ego as the subject of their

functioning ..." (Ideen II, Biemel ed., p. 110). The nature of this demand can be put by

recalling that the cogito is an extended unity of connected experiences. It is, according to

Husserl, a constituted product of the "life" which is the stream of experiences. Granting

this, the demand for the pure ego only occurs when the connections arise which form this

unity. It is only then that we can say "cogito" and from thence proceed through the

Kantian proposition about the "I think" to the necessity of this pure ego.

This move, for Husserl, is one to the "center" or "pole" of the stream which is

our life. If we are to distinguish the ego from its life -- and, with this, distinguish it from

the connected unity of the cogito, and finally from the entities posited through the cogito

-- then the ego only appears as their subjective center. In Husserl's words, "We

distinguish the ego and its life, we say that I am who I am in my life and this life is

experiencing ... the ego, however, is the 'subject' of consciousness; subject, here, is only

another word for the centering which all life possesses as an egological life, i.e., as a
 Notes
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living in order to experience something, to be conscious of it" (Ms. C 3 III, p. 1, March,

1931). As he earlier expresses this: "The central ego is the necessary ego pole of all

experience and of all noematic and ontic givenness which can be legitimated by

experience ..." (Ms. M III 3, XI, p. 21, Sept., 1921). For Husserl, then, the ego which is

demanded by the connected unity of experience which forms the cogito is the center or

pole of this experience. The cogito, or the extended intentional experience, positions the

ego as its "subject" or "center," the two being equivalent terms.

The notion of the pure subject as a center reveals the special character of its

dependence. It is the dependence of a position on that which positions. As we quoted

Husserl above, the pure ego is "only 'individualized' through the stream ..." It becomes

"a numerical singular with respect to 'its' stream of consciousness" -- i.e., the very stream

that forms the individualizing environment of the ego. We can now say that the pure ego

is such a singular only to the point that the experiences and connections making up this

stream allow the presence of a surrounding, singular world. In other words, the ego

exists as such a singular only by being positioned as a singular subject or center of this

world. To make this concrete, we need to note that the harmonious, perspectival

ordering of experiences has a double effect. It yields, on the one hand, the appearing of a

unitary, spatial-temporal world. On the other, it also yields a distinct observer of this

world -- i.e., an ego with a "particular point of view." This particularity (or numerical

singularity) is simply a function of the ego's being positioned as this world's spatial-

temporal center. As its spatial center, it occurs in the "here." This means that the

experiences forming its constituted environment have been so arranged that the subject

always stands at the referential "0-point" which marks off the distances of its world.

Similarly, as the world's temporal center, the subject always occupies the "now." In this

case, its experiences position it as constantly existing between the flowing future and

past.
 Notes
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In both cases, we can say that the ego as a center is not itself constituted but is

rather individualized by the constitution that gives it its surrounding world. The

constitution of such a world is the individualization of its center. Thus, without the

perspectival ordering of experiences, notions such as "near" and "far" and, hence, "here"

would lose their experiential sense. To express this phenomenologically, we can say that

an object is interpreted as approaching the "here" insofar as its appearances are ordered in

time so as to progressively fill up more and more of the visual field. The limiting point

of this series is the "here," interpreted as the case where the object's appearance fills up

the whole of the visual field -- i.e., blocks out the view of all other objects. Another

factor in the setting up of our sense of distance is the rate at which an object's

perspectives unfold. Thus, in a walk through a park, a distant tree appears relatively

stationary while one taken as "nearer" unfolds itself more rapidly in a series of

perspectival views. In this instance, distance is not necessarily measured by relative size

but by the relative rates of the unfolding of perspectives. Once again, the notion of a

"here" is set up as an ideal limit of a progressive series -- but this time the series is one of

relative rates of change.13

As these examples indicate, the notion of a three-dimensional world with oneself

as a center involves both memory and anticipation. Memory is required for the

rentention of the series of perspectival appearances. If the experiences of an object were

to vanish from consciousness the moment after their apprehension, no comparisons of

large and small or of rates of change would be possible. Anticipation is required because

the "here," in almost all cases, is simply an ideal limit. It is something anticipated by

imagining the continuance of a certain ordering of appearances -- i.e., those of an object

getting progressively closer. Granting this, the dissolution of the world in a "tumult" of

experiences involves, necessarily, a disordering of the constitutive series composed of

remembered and anticipated experiences. As such, it involves both the world's past,
 Notes
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remembered being as well as its future, anticipated being. In Husserl's words, such

dissolutions would signify that "... I would not have the spatial-temporal field of a

human life. Spatial-temporality, [spatial-temporal] persisting being would have been

nullified (wäre zunichte geworden). It would not have been nullified in a worldly sense"

-- i.e., the sense whereby an entity within an existing world is considered to be destroyed.

"Rather being itself, the being of the world per se (das Weltsein überhaupt) would have

been nullified. It would have ceased ever to have been through the loss of its validity, its

validity for me as an ego who would remain perplexed in my inner temporality" (Ms. B I

13, VIL, p. 5, Dec. 15, 1931).

As is indicated by the context of this pasage, the point here is that such

dissolution, as necessarily involving both memory and anticipation, is a dissolution that

affects my very "inner temporality" -- i.e., my sense of myself as a center between the

remembered past and the anticipated future. Husserl, thus, writes shortly before the just

quoted passage, "That I remain who I am, as a transcendental ego, as the same personal

ego, this signifies equivalently that my world remains a world" (Ibid., p. 4). He

immediately follows the passage with the words: "If the world existed, it still exists; and

if it exists, it existed. If it existed, it also will exist [in the future]. The world cannot

cease to be; this is senseless as long as I exist and, equivalently, as long as the present

exists and the past existed" (Ibid., p. 5). Thus, the fact that the world is successively

constituted from the temporal ordering of my experiences means that its temporal

structure is parallel to my own. Its being present is, correlatively, my being present as a

"central ego" with a retained past and an anticipated future. This means that the

destruction of my retained past is the destruction of the world's validity for me as past.

As we cited Husserl, such a destruction would signify that "it would have ceased ever to

have been ..." This follows since this "have been" is for me a correlative result of the

constitution which gives me a past. The same point holds, mutatis mutandis, for the
 Notes
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world's future. As long as I exist, i.e., as long as I have a present that implies, through

anticipations, a future, the world has a future.

For Husserl, the above is to be interpreted in a radical manner. There is no time

in a worldly sense without the constitution of retentions and protentions (i.e.,

anticipations). They order our experience in time and thus temporalize the world which

is present through this ordering. We are not ready to discuss this constitution. Yet, we

must take note of its bearing on our present theme: the individual existence of the pure

or "central" ego. Without the temporal ordering of my experiences, I cannot regard

myself as their referential center. Indeed, without temporalization, there cannot be a

spatial-temporal center of an already constituted world. Thus, my existence as such

depends upon a constitution prior to myself, a constitution occurring on a "pre-egological

level" (Ms. B III 9, p. 10, Oct. - Dec. 1931). Since the ego is not yet present here,

Husserl terms it a level of "non-ego." This "non-ego," he writes, "... we can designate as

the realm of constituting association which is non-active, i.e., as temporalization ..."

(Ibid., p. 23). Occurring before the central ego, this is a "passive" temporalization, i.e.,

one that occurs before any activity on its part. It is also, Husserl claims, a

temporalization which results in such activity. It results in the individual ego being taken

as the active center of its world.

According to Husserl, this last point depends upon our viewing the temporal

field both as a "fixed continuum of form" and as a field whose contents stream. The

former arises through the constitution of the continua of what we retain and what we

anticipate -- i.e., the continua of pastness and futurity. The result of this constitution is

the positioning of the ego as their "middlepoint." More precisely put, the ego becomes

present -- i.e., comes into being -- as the now which we constantly occupy, the now

which is at the center of our temporal field. To see this center as active, we must see the

field as active. In other words, the contents placed in its "fixed continua" must not
 Notes
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themselves be seen as fixed, but rather as streaming. A later chapter will consider the

origin of this streaming. For the present, we have to simply observe that such streaming

is inherent in the notion of the temporalization of an experience. Thus, what we regard

as past or future cannot be seen as fixed in relation to our now. Insofar as they are in

time, insofar as time itself is something which is continually "passing" or streaming, they

must stream. The experience which is past sinks into further pastness; future experiences

constantly draw nearer to the present. We can, thus, say that the streaming of experience

from futurity to pastness is a streaming through the now which we constantly occupy.

This cannot be otherwise, since the very constitution which gives us a streaming past and

future positions us as a point of passage between the two. With this, we have the

constitution of the ego as an active center. Its constitution as a point of passage is its

constitution as a point where its experiences "well up" as present and actual. As Husserl

puts this, "And in this streaming, there is constituted a lasting and remaining primal now

as a fixed form for a content which streams through it ... there is constituted a fixed

continuum of form in which the primal now is a primal welling middle point for two

continua [understood] as branches of the modes of [temporal] modifications: the

continuum of what is just past and that of futurities" (Ms. C 2 I, p. 15, Aug. 1931, second

italics added).

This passage should not lead us to believe that the ego, as an unchanging and

absolutely self-identical now, is itself constituted or synthesized out of the changing

temporal experiences. As we quoted Husserl above, the ego's purity from experiences is

also its purity from their temporality. In Husserl's words, "The self, which is the

'thoroughly' identical, is not temporal or even temporally extended in the same sense as

the experiences" (See above, p. ; see also Mss. E III 2, p. 50; C 10, p. 21). What is

constituted is this self's relation to its field, i.e., its status as a "fixed form" for the content

which appears to flow through it. The individual ego appears as the point of the welling
 Notes
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up of the moments of time precisely because of its constituted position as a "middle

point" for a temporally extended content which is, itself, constituted as temporally

flowing. With this, the significance of the remark about the ego which remains

"perplexed" in its "inner temporality" becomes clear. If the individual ego only exists as

a center of a temporal field, the dissolution of this field, in its continua of pastness and

futurity, must amount to a dissolution of the active, individual ego, the very ego for

whom this field forms the streaming, centering environment.

§12. The Double Availability of the Pure Ego.

The above allows us to make a point with regard to the pure ego's availability for

our introspection. This availability is twofold. The pure ego is, first of all, available as

the ego which is demanded and positioned by the cogito. It appears as the present ego of

a present, ongoing act. As we quoted Husserl, a multiplicity of experiences is not

necessary for its apprehension. Such a multiplicity, in fact, "is no more informative than

a single experience of a straightforward cogito" (See above, ). The second form of

the ego's availability goes beyond this single experience. It is its availability as that

which is the same in multitude of temporally distinct, reflective acts. Here, the ego

appears "as something identically the same in all absolutely (phenomenologically)

apprehended cogitationes which I apprehend in memory ..." (See above, ). As

Husserl also puts this, "... in each reflection, I find myself, and find the same ego in

necessary self-coincidence" (EP II, Boehm ed., p. 411). This "self-coincidence" does not

just concern the acts of memory. The ego which appears in the acts which I remember

coincides with the ego I presently am and coincides with the ego of my anticipated acts.

When I reflect on such acts, "there immediately emerges the original identity: in the

form, I, the ego of the primal present along with the primal, original representations

existing in this present, am the same ego which was present in memory along with the
 Notes
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remembered, the same ego which, in anticipation, will be present along with what is to

come" (Ms. C 16, VI, p. 28, May, 1932, italics added). As we noted, this form of

availability corresponds to the demand for a self-identical experiencer. It is the

availabilty of the ego which "can find itself as identical in its course" (See above).

There are, according to Husserl, three characteristics which distinguish this

second type of availability. First of all, in contrast to the first, it demands a multitude of

acts. This means that we must have the capacity for memory and reflection. Without

this, we could not grasp the pure ego considered as the "original identity" of past and

present acts. In Husserl's words, this original identity is able to appear "by virtue of

'memories' and to these pertain, as to all acts, the capacity for the identifying repetition

[of the past acts] and the capacity for reflection" on the acts which have been "repeated"

-- i.e., brought up unchanged to the present (Ms. C 16 IV, p. 29, May 1932). A second

characteristic of this availability is that it cannot be thought of as limited to a specific

time. The pure ego which is available to us at one time through acts of memory and

reflection is equally available whenever we perform these acts. Its sameness for us at the

different times we perform such acts points back to its own sameness at the different

times when it was originally present. Thus, we remember the ego as it was originally

present in temporally distinct acts. Yet, in reflecting on such memories, we find it "in

necesary self-coincidence." Whenever it was originally present, it was always the same.

Indeed, through an act of "identifying repetition," it can be repeated -- i.e., re-presented

-- and identified as the same as the present ego. For Husserl, this signifies that this ego is

"all-temporal (Allzeitlich)." He asserts that by virtue of my acts of identifying repetition,

" ... there is inferred or constituted as existent the totality of my (the identical ego's)

temporal existence; there is inferred my all-temporality as that of my identical being in

the universality of my momentarily present, my past and my future conscious life ..."

(Ibid., p. 30, italics added). This "all-temporality" leads to a third distinguishing

 Notes
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characteristic of this second type of availability. As Klaus Held notes, what is "inferred

or constituted" here is an entity which is "everywhere and nowhere." It is everywhere

insofar as it is identically present in all re-presented stretches of conscious life, be they

past, present or future sretches. It is nowehere insofar as it is not defined or limited by

any particular temporal location. Held, thus, concludes that this ego has "the mode of

givenness of an all-temporal, ideal, irreal object" (Lebendige Gegenwart,

Phaenomenologica, No. 23, The Hague, 1966, p. 124). It possesses, in other words, the

availability of an idea.

Husserl on rare occasions does speak of the pure ego as an idea (See, e.g.,

Phänomenologische Psychologie, ed. W. Biemel, Husseriana IX, The Hague, 1968, p.

476). The reasons for this are clear. Like the idea, it is grasped in an "overreaching act"

of identification; it also possesses the idea's one in many character and, hence, its

"everywhere and nowhere" temporality. Now, such characterizations, clear enough in

themselves, have unfortunately led to a certain confusion. The pure ego, qua idea, is not,

as Held believes, a Kantian idea. Its availability is not limited to this form (See Held, op.

cit., pp. 126-28).14 Once we grant this, we can also say that its twofold availability does

not mean that we are dealing with two distinct, even contradictory concepts of the ego as

Eduard Marbach maintains (See Das Problem des Ich in der Phänomenologie Husserls,

Phaenomenologica, No. 59, The Hague, 1974, pp. 289ff.). We, thus, need not follow

Marbach in attempting to assert that the ego which is "tied to the analysis of the acts of

re-presentation" -- i.e., the ego that appears through memory and reflection -- is the only

ego which genuinely deserves the title of "ego" (See Ibid., pp. 298, 338-39).15

To make these points, we must first recall that a Kantian idea involves an infinite

"continuum of appearances." This is a continuum "in which one and the same constantly

given X is continually and harmoniously determined 'more closely' and never 'otherwise'"

(Ideen I, Biemel ed., p. 351). The conception here is one of infinite advance in the
 Notes
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determination of some entity. The entity appears rather like the "limit" in calculus. It

has the position of a defined, yet never actually reachable limit in the advance of closer

and closer determination. This, however, is not the position of the ego which appears as

"identically the same" in all the cogitationes apprehended through memory. As

something which always appears "absolutely" identical, it rules out any notion of

progressive advance in its determination. Each further view of it does not present us

with something new which could add a further determination; rather, this ego always

shows itself as simply the same. This means that, in regarding its appearances, we are

already constantly present at the limit.

Admitting that the availability of the ego, qua idea, is not that of a Kantian idea,

we can see the consistency of the two forms of its availability. Both, we can say, spring

from the ego's position as a center. Thus, as the ego which is positioned and demanded

by the cogito, i.e., the ego of a present ongoing act, its position is that of a spatial-

temporal 0-point. It is the position of a "here" with regard to a constituted spatial

environment; it is also the position of a "now" with regard to a temporally constituted

environment of pastness and futurity. In the representation of a past cogito, the ego

occupies the same relative position. In all remembrances of myself and my acts, I always

appear as occupying the here and the now of such acts. The recollection of a stretch of

past experience always includes my position as subject or center of such a stretch. It is,

therefore, this central position which forms the basis for the act of identification which

constitutes the idea of the ego. Indeed, the content of this constituted idea is nothing

other than that which I apprehend in "a single experience of a straightforward cogito." In

the latter, I have the immediate sense of myself as subject or center. In the act of

identification, this sense is simply raised to the status of an "all-temporal" idea.

§13. The Presumptiveness and Passivity of the Pure Ego.

 Notes
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Let us attempt to summarize the results of our examination of the pure ego. Our

general conclusion is that the pure ego is the "center" of its constituted world. As

Husserl tells us, this world is presumptive in its givenness and, hence, in its being. Thus,

our first observation is that the same presumptiveness applies to the pure ego positioned

as its center or pole. To put this in even stronger terms, we can say that the dissolution

of the cogito into an unconnected "tumult" of experiences involves necessarily a double

dissolution. We have, on the one hand, a dissolution of the constituted world which is

presented through the cogito. On the other hand, we also have the dissolution of the pure

ego as demanded and positioned by the connected unity of the cogito. The disordered

cogito has no definite point of experiential focus. Insofar as the pure ego is defined in

terms of "the centering which all [conscious] life possesses" through the cogito, the loss

of the focus is the loss of the pure ego in its raison d'etre. A similar point can be made

with regard to the pure ego's being as a numerical singular. The dissolution of the ego's

individualizing environment is a dissolution of this ego's individuality. The dissolution

leaves the ego "worldless." As a worldless ego, it is in the position of expressing a "here"

and a "now" without a corresponding reference to the spatial and temporal fields which

would give such terms an individual sense. Thus, spatially, it becomes a "here" without

any correspondingly defined "near" and "far." Temporally, it becomes an expression of a

"now" without any reference to a definite before and after which would temporally locate

it. In both cases, then, it appears as a center without any reference to the whole whose

center it is.16

The above allows us a sense of the presumptiveness of the world which is deeper

than the one which we hitherto considered. The first sense of such presumptiveness

involves the givenness of the world. To this we can add the sense of the presumptiveness

of the ego to whom the world is given. The first sense is based upon the world's

existential status as an infinite, Kantian idea. Existing "absolutely" as such, it can never
 Notes
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be grasped or "established" by the finite perceptions of a finite ego. This sense can now

be strengthened by the further realization that this finite ego is insufficient as a ground of

the world. It cannot assure us of the world's continuing givenness because it itself

presupposes such givenness. It is given along with its world as its center or pole. This

means that what grounds the world also grounds it. Both are co-grounded by one and the

same process.

We can put this in terms of the "life" of the ego -- i.e., the ongoing stream of

experiences. As we quoted Husserl, "Every action [of the ego] is itself 'contained' in the

universal stream of experiences which is, thus, called the 'life' of the ego ..." (Ms. C 17

IV, p. 2, 1930). This stream is called the ego's life because the ego "lives" through its

acts, its cogitationes. But since the latter are made up of the experiences forming the

stream, they do not represent a "life" which is distinct from that of the stream. Indeed, as

Husserl observes, the stream is a passively occurring process. As we cited him:

"'Passive' signifies here without the action of the ego ... The stream does not exist by

virtue of the action of the ego, as if the ego aimed at actualizing the stream, as if the

stream were actualized by an action. The stream is not something done (Getanes), not

some deed (Tat) in the widest sense of the word" (Ibid., pp. 1-2). It is rather a doer and,

as such contains all action. Thus, the stream itself is the ground of the actions by which I

establish my surrounding world and, with this, my own existence as its center. Both my

cogitationes and the centered world which they present are co-grounded by the same

passive processes which result in the stream.

To penetrate any further, we must speak of "temporalization." The processes in

question receive this name for they concern the action by which experiences are placed in

time so as to produce the ongoing stream of experiences. We are not yet prepared to

discuss such processes. We can, however, note that when Husserl discusses the

dependence of the ego on its life (or stream), this dependence is normally expressed in
 Notes
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terms of the temporal ordering of this life. Thus, such dependence means that "I only

exist as living within this streaming life; and I only possess temporal being in its

generally describable features [of past, present and future] by virtue of the particular

[temporal] structure of this life" (Ms. C3 II, p. 4, Nov. 1930). This temporal structure is

not the result of the action of the individual ego. Rather, "the individual egological life,

taken as immanent temporality, is passively constituted" (Ms. B I 32, I, p. 16, May or

Aug. 1931). Husserl elsewhere describes such passive constitution as "a passive, primal-

associative temporalization within the lasting streaming." This "first temporalization" is

productive of retention and protentions (i.e., anticipations). It "temporalizes the stream

which is thereby constituted in its living temporality, a temporality which extends itself

along with its temporal modalities: present (the present of the streaming), past (the just

past streaming), future ..." (Ms. C 16 VI, p. 29, May 1932). The mechanics of this

process will be the subject of a later chapter. We here simply observe that it is by virtue

of this passive constitution of the modalities of past, present and future that "I exist in the

unity of a life which, qua constituted life, bears within it a temporal order ..." (Ms. B I

32, p. 17). When I regard myself as a pure ego, this existence is that of a "middle point"

between past and future (See above, ). It is only in terms of my being in the now --

i.e., in this "middlepoint" -- that I can call myself the "center" or the "pole" of my life.

As Husserl writes: "I am I, the center of things pertaining to the ego (Ichlichkeiten), but I

exist only as the ego of associatively bound unities in which everything ... possesses

associative temporality" (Ms. C 7 I, p. 24, June-July, 1932, italics added). In other

words, "I exist -- I live, and my life is an unbroken unity of the primal, streaming

temporalization in which all the multiple temporalizations are hidden ... I, that means

here, first of all, only the 'primal pole' of 'one's' life, one's primal stream in which all

unities, which are called existents, temporalize themselves as persisting unities" (Ms. C 2

I, p. 4, Aug., 1932, first italics added).

 Notes
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Husserl's doctrine, then, is clear. Insofar as the ego exists as a temporal "middle

point," "center" or "pole," it is dependent on the temporal constitution which structures

its life and positions it as such. The same point holds mutatis mutandis for the

constitution which gives it its position as a "here." Indeed, as we have already indicated,

such constitution is essentially temporal. A being "perplexed" in its "inner temporality"

would not grasp the temporal ordering of perspectives which positions him as a center of

a three-dimensional world. The retentions which constitute (or position) experiences as

occurring within definite points of the past would not occur; and, with this, the

perspectival ordering of experiences would itself be lost.

The result of this analysis is apparent. It is the undermining of any notion of the

individual ego as a self-sufficient center of activity. As we have seen, the notion of the

ego as active depends upon the cogito having already been constituted. It presupposes, in

other words, a level of constitution in which the experiences composing the cogito have

already been ordered and connected in time. With this, there is also the constitution of

the objectivity which exists as persisting through such experiences. It is only at this level

that an ego can be "active" in the sense of actively directing its glance (Blick) at an

objectivity. Husserl, thus, writes: "Proceeding from the deepest ground, we therefore

have an essential two layeredness which we can designate as non-ego and ego ..." The

first layer he describes "as the realm of the constituting association which is non-active,

as temporalization." The second is "the realm of the activity which is related to the

[already constituted] temporal objectivities." It is described "as the activity pertaining to

the primary-streaming existents (Seienden), the activity centered in the ego as the

identical source of all action and all the retention in memory (Behalten) which results

from action." This second layer depends on the first, for as Husserl immediately adds:

"The active retention in memory (das active Behalten) is what concerns the ego as its

accomplishment, while the associatively retained (das associative Reterneirte) is that

 Notes
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which lies before all proper being and makes possible being as something which can be

accomplished through activity" (Ms. B III 9, p. 23, Oct.-Dec. 1931). Husserl's claim,

here, is that all egological activity, including the activity of remembering, is dependent

on the non-egological, "associative" constitution of retentions. It is such constitution,

understood as temporalization, which first gives us the cogito and its objects as persisting

temporal unities -- unities which then can be actively retained in memory.

The conclusion this leads to has already been noted. According to Husserl,

passive constitution is what first "makes possible" persisting or lasting being. Thus, as

we quoted him with regard to the "lasting world," the individual, active "ego ... does not

create it, does not produce it in the usual sense" (See above, ). Iso Kern expresses

this conclusion in the following words: "Transcendental subjectivity is not the sufficient

ground of the being of the world. World constitution, according to Husserl, is therefore

not the proper work of transcendental subjectivity; it is rather something which is

radically given, as Husserl says, a 'wonder'" (Husserl und Kant, ed. cit., p. 298). The

"wonder" includes both the being of the individual subject as well as that of the world

which surrounds it. Both, in their being, are dependent on a constitution which "lies

before all proper being." As non self-sufficient, both are presumptive and both, as Kern

states, are capable of "dissolution" (See Ibid., pp. 297-98).

These remarks apply to the individual ego, whether we take it as real, as

personal, or as pure. They apply to it as an individual -- i.e., as a numerically singular

existent. As such, they do not apply to the consciousness (or ego) which we mentioned

at the beginning of this chapter. The latter is not a numerical, but rather a unique

singular. It is such by being a necessary and self-sufficient ground of the world (See

above, ). Two admissions follow from this. The first is that I cannot consider

myself as this self-sufficient consciousness once I interpret myself as a numerical

singular ego. The second is that such self-interpretation defines me as incapable of

 Notes
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"passively" breaking the intersubjective harmony. The passive constitution required for

this is not my own. That it is not is, indeed, the mark of my lack of self-sufficiency.

Such admissions, of course, do not amount to the assertion that an intersubjective

harmony actually obtains. To establish the latter, we must turn to the consideration of

the consciousness which Husserl does consider to be absolute, i.e., as absolutely self-

sufficient in its grounding function. It is here, as we shall see, that we catch our first

glimpse of what Husserl considers to be the functioning ground of the intersubjective

harmony.
 Notes
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CHAPTER III
FACTICITY AND INTERSUBJECTIVITY

§1. A Comparison with Kant.

A bridge can be made from the considerations of our last chapter to those which

shall presently occupy us by comparing Kant's and Husserl's positions on a number of

points: the ego, the a priori, and facticity. In a certain sense, Husserl's doctrine can be

defined as a reaction against the Kantian. The consideration of this reaction will give us

the appropriate context for discussing Husserl's conception of the "absolute"

consciousness.

A. The pure ego in Husserl and Kant

There are a number of remarkable similarities between Kant's and Husserl's

doctrines of the pure ego. Kant calls this ego "the transcendental unity of apperception."

It appears in his descriptions as a "thoroughgoing identity" (Kritik der reinen Vernunft, A

116). As such, it manifests a pure, non-perspectival unity which is distinct from the

changing contents of consciousness (See Ibid., B 135, B 138, B 157). A further

similarity with Husserl's pure ego is its status as a referential center (or pole) of

experience (See Ibid., B 134). Finally and most importantly, both authors agree that the

unity of this ego is essentially correlated to the unity of the appearing world.

Kant expresses this correlation in terms of the "categories" or "pure concepts" of

the understanding. These are defined as rules for synthesizing appearances so as to

permit the intuition of a unitary object and, over and beyond this, the intuition of a

unified, self-consistent world of objects. According to Kant, the thought of one's self-

identity as a subject is also the thought of the objective synthesis determined by the

categories. In Kant's words, "The original and necessary consciousness of one's self-

identity is, thus, at the same time a consciousness of an equally necessary unity of the
 Notes
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synthesis of all appearances according to [categorical] concepts, i.e., according to rules

which ... determine an intuitable object for these appearances, i.e., determine the concept

of something in which these appearances are necessarily connected [as appearances of a

unitary object]" ("Kritik d. r. Vernunft," A 108; Kant's Schriften, Berlin, 1911, IV, 82).

According to this correlation, we can say that the violation of these categories or rules --

if such could be imagined -- results in the disruption of our intuition of a unified,

objective world. Correlatively, it also results in the disruption of our consciousness of

ourselves as self-identical subjects of this unified, appearing world. As Husserl writes,

commenting on the Kantian correlation between the unity of the ego and that of its

world: "Kant further believed that he could demonstrate that the categories are the

concepts through which the pure ego must think the correlative object-world, the very

world which the ego, itself, demands. If it is going to think of this world harmoniously

or maintain itself as an identical subject of the understanding, it must, therefore, think

objects according to the basic categorical laws" ("Beilage XXI," EP I, Boehm ed., p.

398). For Husserl, the same point follows because the pure ego is positioned by the

world as its unitary center or pole. Thus, to think the ego's unity is also to think the unity

of the world which centers or defines it. It is, moreover, to think of the operation of

those rules of synthesizing or connecting perceptions which result in the constitution of

this unified world. For Kant, as we shall see, this point has a fundamentally different

basis. Indeed, all of his agreements with Husserl on the nature of the pure ego spring

from a doctrine which Husserl explicitly denies.

This doctrine is that of the ego as a nouminal ground of objective experience. As

nouminal, it has the status of an experiencer distinct from its ongoing experience. It does

not appear through the connected unity of a multiplicity of appearances which forms an

ongoing intuition. On the contrary, as Kant writes, "... through the ego, as a simple

representation, nothing multiple is given; a multiplicity can be given only in an intuition

 Notes
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which is distinct from this [representation] ..." ("Kritik d. r. Vernunft," B 135; Kant's

Schriften, Berlin, 1911, III, 110). The fact that it cannot be represented through the

"multiplicity" of an intuition gives the Kantian ego its non-perspectival character. It

does not change, i.e., show itself from another side, in the change of appearances making

up the intuition. On the contrary, it maintains, with regard to such changing

representations, a complete identity. In Kant's words, "We are conscious a priori of the

thoroughgoing identity of ourselves in all representations which can ever belong to our

knowledge ..." (Ibid., A 116; Kant's Schriften, IV, 87). In other words, since my self-

representation is not given to me by an intuition, "I am, therefore, conscious of the self as

identical with respect to the multitude of the representations which are given to me in an

intuition ..." (Ibid., B 135; Kant's Schriften, III, 110).

The notion of the self as nouminal or non-intuitable cannot per se arise from

intuition. What is directly posited on the basis of intuitive experience has, itself, an

intuitable character. What this signifies is that the simple representation of the self as

nouminal is one that arises from a deductive necessity. It springs from the ego's position

as a transcendental ground of the appearing world's unity. Kant puts this point in terms

of the "understanding" -- i.e., that faculty which works according to the categorical ruels

for combining appearances into synthetic unities. He writes, "Without understanding,

there would be no nature, i.e., no synthetic unity of the multiplicity of appearances

according to rules ... Such nature, however, as an object of knowledge in our experience

with everything which it may contain, is only possible in the unity of apperception. The

unity of apperception, however, is the transcendental ground of the necessary lawfulness

of appearances composing an experience" ("Kritik d. r. V.," A 127; Kant's Schriften, IV,

93, italics added). This transcendental ground of nature -- i.e., of the appearing world --

is, as Kant remarks, not something which, itself, is formed by combination; it is rather

the ground of all combination. It is that which, itself, "first of all makes possible the
 Notes
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concept of combination" (Ibid., B 131; Kant's Schriften, III, 108). As such, it makes

possible the categorical concepts which express the various types of synthetic

combinations. It also makes possible the understanding in its formulation and logical

employment of such concepts. It is, thus, represented as "that which contains the ground

of the unity of the different concepts in judgment and, with this, the ground of the

possibility of the understanding, even as regards its logical employment" (Ibid.).

From this, the nouminal status of the ego (or "unity of apperception") necessarily

follows. The categories are rules of synthesis governing the ongong intuition of an

object. As the ground of the categories and, hence, of all objective synthesis, the ego

cannot be represented as the result of such synthesis. Insofar as this result is what

objectively appears, the ego cannot be thought of as objectively appearing. We can also

express this in terms of Kant's concept of the ego as the uncombined ground of all

combination. As uncombined, it is by definition that in whose representation "nothing

manifold is given." It is the "thoroughgoing identity" which is distinct from the

multiplicity of an ongoing intuition. Thus, admitting that all objective intuition occurs

through the synthesis of a multiplicity of appearances, its own simple (uncombined)

unity at once positions it as an "I in itself" -- i.e., as the non-intuitable, "nouminal" ego

(See Kritik d. r. V., B 158-9, B 421-22).

If we persist in asking why we should posit this uncombined ground of all

combination, we come to a second aspect of the deduction leading to this ego. It begins

with our acknowledging that "an object is that in whose concept there is united a

multiplicity of a given intuition" ("Kritik d. r. V.," B 137; Kant's Schriften, III, 137). It

then adds the apparently necessary proposition that union or combination requires the

action of a combiner. Where are we to locate this combiner whose action results in the

intuitive presence of the object? The Kantian answer is that the action of combination or

synthesis is present in the subject itself. It is an act of its very "selfhood." As Kant
 Notes
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expresses this, there is "an action of the understanding which we may name with the

general title of synthesis in order, thereby, to draw attention to the fact that we cannot

represent to ourselves anything as combined in the object without ourselves first having

combined it and that combination ... can only be performed by the subject itself since it is

an act of its selfhood" (Ibid., B 130; Kant's Schriften, III, 107). The deduction, then is

from the givenness of the phenomenal action of synthesis to the necessity of the subject

as an active synthesizer. It is as such a synthesizer that the ego can be deductively

represented as nouminal -- i.e., as the uncombined ground of all combination. It is also

as such that it can be thought of as a referential center of the experiences it combines.

In regard to this last, it is to be noted that Kant and Husserl agree that the identity

of the subject requires its purity from experiences. If my subject were identified with its

changing contents of consciousness, then, as Kant remarks, "... I would have as motley

and diverse a self as the conscious representations which I possess." Now, for Husserl,

this thought of the subject as a simple identity vis-a-vis its changing experiences implies

its conception as their referential center. The unchanging subject gives the changing

experiences a unitary, subjective point of reference. By virtue of this, the experiences

can be thought of as present in "one consciousness" and, indeed, as "belonging" to a pure

ego conceived as the self-identical center or subject of this consciousness. In other

words, the field of experiences composing this consciousness belongs to its center or

subject since the field forms the subject's essential "centering" environment. For Kant,

however, this belonging has an even stronger sense. As indicated, it springs from the

proposition that all combination requires a combiner. Kant writes, "The thought that the

representations given in an intuition one and all belong to me is, accordingly, equivalent

to the thought that I unite them in one self-consciousness or at least can so unite them"

("Kritik d. r. V.," B 134; Kant's Schriften, III, 110). The conclusion follows once we

admit that whatever exists solely by virtue of the synthetic action of the ego -- here, each
 Notes
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of the ego's intuitive synthetic representations -- necessarily belongs to the ego (See Ibid.,

B. 135). Such belonging signifies that its intuitive representations are the ego's

"products," i.e., that they are incapable of existing without the ego.

The difference between Kant's and Husserl's conceptions of the correlation

between the ego's unity and the unity of the world should now be apparent. As we saw in

our last chapter, Husserl does not conceive of the pure ego as a transcendental ground of

the appearing world's unity. Quite the contrary, the ego's unity, understood as its

numerical singularity, is considered as grounded by the experiences which gives it a

unitary surrounding world. As dependent on these experiences, it is seen as presumptive,

i.e., as capable of undergoing dissolution once these experiences are disorganized into a

"tumult." For Husserl, then, it is the unity of the appearing, constituted world which

necessarily implies the singular unity of the pure ego. In Kant's doctrine, the reverse

order of implication holds: one's self-identity necessarily implies a transcendental unity

of the synthesis of appearances and, hence, the unity of the appearing world. It does so

because this self-identity is the "transcendental ground" of the unity of the appearing

world. The self-identity is that of an uncombined combiner. Thus, its representation is

that of an actor who has acted so as to combine appearances into a unitary world. Given

this order of implication, a certain logical consequence follows: if the thought of the

transcendental unity of apperception does imply the process of synthetic action according

to the categories, then the violation of such action also implies the absence of this

transcendental unity or Kantian ego. It does not, however, follow from this that, as we

quoted Husserl, this ego "demands" for its own unity the "basic categorical laws" by

which it intuits a unified world (See above, ). Insofar as this demand would signify

the dependence of the ego on the appearing world, it would reverse the Kantian order of

implication. It would make the ego presumptive. It would make it dependent on the

presence of the unified appearing world which its own unity supposedly "demands."
 Notes
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Now, if it is a ground of the latter, it cannot be dependent on it. A condition for the

world's appearing lawfulness is, as such, not conditioned by this lawfulness. We can put

this in terms of the fact that, as a ground or condition, this ego for Kant is a nouminal

ego. The dissolution of the world in a tumult of appearances does not affect this

nouminal ego since, as nouminal, it is beyond the connected multiplicity of appearances.

This point can be made slightly more concrete by noting that although the

Kantian ego is the necessary and sufficient ground of the lawfulness of the world, it is

only a co-ground of the world's appearance. For the latter to occur, it requires a

"transcendent affection" from the things in themselves. This affection provides the

necessary material for its synthetic action according to the categorical rules. Given this,

we can say that the presence of a transcendental unity of apperception implies the

presence of its synthetic action; but we must add that this action has a sensible effect only

in the presence of a transcendent affection. The absence of the latter, thus, implies the

absence of any appearing result of the egological action; it does not, however, imply that

the ego, as understanding -- as the sufficient ground of the world's lawfulness -- has itself

been disrupted.1

B. The Kantian regressive method and its phenomenological critique.

There is, as indicated, a twofold deduction by which Kant arrives at the notion of

the ego as the nouminal ground of the appearing world. As a ground, it is deduced under

the principle that all combination requires a combiner, i.e., an active synthesizer. As

nouminal, it is a consequence of the thought that the unconditioned ground of all

combination cannot be intuited. Here, Kant presupposes that all intuition occurs through

combination. Both deductions are examples of Kant's celebrated "regressive method."

Broadly speaking, this is a method which proceeds from what is empirically given to

deduce the universal conditions which must obtain if such givenness is to be possible.
 Notes
145

Husserl's sharpest criticisms of Kant concern his use of this method. He writes,

for example:

One complains about the obscurity of the Kantian philosophy, about the
incomprehensibility of the evidences of his regressive method, of its transcendental-
subjective "faculties," functions, formations, about the difficulty of understanding what
transcendental subjectivity actually is, how its functioning, its accomplishment comes
about, how through this functioning objective science in toto is supposed to be made
intelligible. In fact, Kant falls into his own type of mythic speech whose literal meaning
certainly points to something subjective, but to a mode of the subjective which we, in
principle, cannot make intuitive to ourselves, either by factual examples or by genuine
analogy (Krisis, Biemel ed., p. 116).

The point of this complaint is familiar to readers of the Critique. It essentially concerns a

certain duality in Kant's conception of his regressive method. On the one hand, it is

conceived as a regression to the phenomenal subject. Here, appearing subjective

faculties and functions are conceived as serving as necessary conditions for the

lawfulness of the appearing world. In this employment, many of its results appear

strikingly similar to those obtained by Husserl's own phenomenological reduction. On

the other hand, the Kantian method is also conceived as a regression to the ground of

appearance per se. In this view, it is not the phenomenal, but rather the nouminal subject

who (along with the nouminal world) is represented as serving as a necessary condition

for the appearance of the world. Thus, the faculties and functions are conceived as those

of the nouminal subject and, as such, as operations which "we cannot, in principle, make

intuitive to ourselves ..." With this move, the value for Husserl of the regressive method

is undermined. In seeking the ground of appearance per se, the method undercuts the

evidential quality of its account of how the ego functions as such a ground. Thus, the

descriptions of the functioning of the ego it does provide become understood as

 Notes
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descriptions of the functioning of the appearing ego. There is an enforced silence with

regard to the actually functioning ego, which, as nouminal, is positioned beyond all

phenomenal experience and description.

We can illustrate this criticism with a reference to two of Kant's most important

doctrines -- those of the categories and of inner sense. With respect to the categories, the

"given" to be regressively explained can be put in a number of ways. Each of the

categorical concepts, e.g., those of substance and accident, of cause and effect, etc., is a

way of characterizing reality. Each corresponds, according to Kant, to a logical form and

also to a synthetic judgment. Thus, to the concept of causality there corresponds the

form of the hypothetical assertion and also the synthetic judgment, "If there is an effect,

then there must be a corresponding cause." Similarly, the concept of substance is

correlated to the form of categorical assertion, "A is X," and to the synthetic judgment

that A exists with the predicate X inhering in it. As these examples indicate, each

synthetic judgment has the logical form which corresponds to its categorical concept. All

of this is rather straightforward; yet it raises for Kant a number of questions: Why is

reality categorizable at all? How can we make synthetic judgments about our

experiences and claim that such judgments are not just valid for ourselves but hold for

everyone regarding their objects? Finally, how can we apply our logical forms to our

appearing, intuitable world? We do apply the logical forms of our assertions to what we

experience and use them to deduce what we can expect to experience. What accounts for

the success of such deductions? Furthermore, when our logical forms of inference are

mathematized and used to construct a predictive, Newtonian account of nature, we can

ask how the resulting science of nature is possible. Put in terms of givenness, our

questions concern, respectively, the givenness of the categories, of objectively valid

synthetic judgments, of the applicability of logic to nature and, by a certain extension of

 Notes
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this last, the givenness of Newtonian science taken as a sucessful mathematization of

nature.

As a slight reflection shows, these questions imply each other. If nature is

objectively categorizable, then, in employing our categories, we can make synthetic

judgments about it. The objective validity of these judgments indicates the applicability

of their logical forms to nature. We can further see that if certain synthetic judgments

have an a priori, universal validity, i.e., hold for every possible object of experience, then

these forms will also have a corresponding validity. They will validly apply to every

object of experience simply by virtue of its being an object of experience. Thus, if it is

true, a priori, that nothing occurs without its cause, then we are entitled to assert with

respect to every state of affairs: "If it occurs, then there must be a corresponding cause."

This implies that the form of a hypothetical judgment has an unlimited applicability with

regard to the occurrence of experiential objects. The same argument can be made with

regard to the form of categorical assertion if we can assert that, a priori, every accident

inheres in a substance -- i.e., every predicate we make must attach itself to a persisting

being. Put in this way, we can say that the question of givenness concerns that of formal

symbolic logic with its unrestricted applicability to all possible objects of experience.

Correspondingly, it also concerns the givenness of synthetic, a priori judgments.

Kant, in following the first aspect of his regressive method, explains such

givenness in terms of "the necessary and universal connections of the given perceptions

(Wahrnemungen)" by which we intuit a unified, self-consistent world ("Progogomena,"

§19; Kant's Schriften, IV, 298). The explanation, in other words, is in terms of a

category, subjectively understood as a universally operative rule for connecting

perceptions. By virtue of its obtaining, we possess the synthetic (or connected) unity of

the intuition whose objects confirm a particular type of synthetic judgment with its

particular logical form. Thus, as Kant writes with regard to that which determines the
 Notes
148

synthetic judgment as necessary and, hence, as universally valid, "... this can be nothing

else than that [categorical] concept which represents the intuition as determined in itself

with regard to one form of judgment rather than another, i.e., a concept of that synthetic

unity of intuitions which can only be represented by a given logical form of judgment"

(Ibid., §21a; Kant's Schriften, IV, 304). Now, if we ignore the last few words of this

passage, what we seem to have here is an invitation to an introspective,

phenomenological investigation of the syntheses of consciousness. Thus, to explain the

universal applicability of the logical forms to the world, we are first called upon to make

a "table" or list of those synthetic a priori judgments of experience -- e.g., the universal

judgment of causality -- which embody the basic logical forms -- e.g., the form of a

hypothetical judgment. We then are invited to interpret these judgments in terms of the

connections obtaining between our "given," i.e., our actually experienced, "perceptions."

These are to be taken as the connections which "determine" our intuition in its "synthetic

unity" to confirm a specific type of synthetic a priori judgment.

Tempting as this invitation is, it is one which Kant must eventually refuse when

he propounds his doctrine of "inner sense." The regressive method, having brought Kant

to the realm of "inner sense" -- i.e., to the realm of direct introspection -- follows its own

logic and moves him beyond this. Its logic is that of proceeding from the given to

explain the conditions of the possibility of such givenness. Now, for Kant, the regress to

the conditions of the possibility of what is subjectively given through inner sense -- i.e.,

through our reflections on our acts -- involves his teaching on the constitution of time.

What is subjectively given is simply perceptions (appearances) in their temporal

ordering. It is by virtue of their ordering in time that the connections arise which yield

the synthetic unities of intuition. What this signifies is that temporal relations form the

whole of the sphere of what is proper to the subject. Time, thus, appears as the "formal

condition of inner sense." It is that in which the representations available to this sense
 Notes
149

"must one and all be ordered, connected, and brought into relation" ("Kritik d. r. V.," A

99; Kant's Schriften, IV, 77). Granting this, a direct, phenomenological investigation of

such relations would seem to give us the subjective conditions for the possibility of

experience. In his section on the "Schematism," Kant does, in fact, provide an analysis

of the temporal relations which are required if we are to experience objects in conformity

with the categories. Yet, what we have called the "logic" of the regressive method moves

him beyond such analysis to inquire into the conditions of the possibility of time itself.

The move, in other words, is from inner sense, the last of the directly intuitable realms,

to the condition for its possibility as a field of temporal relations. Kant's teaching, here, is

that temporalization is one of the hidden, constitutive functions of the subject. Briefly

put, his doctrine is that being in time is not a feature of entities in themselves; it is rather

something which the subject adds to them so as to make their appearance possible. With

regard to our self-perception, this signifies that the temporal relations which we do

observe through inner sense are relations descriptive of the appearing, and not of the

acting subject considered "in itself." Inner sense is, thus, limited to the results, as

opposed to the underlying causes, of the self's activity. In Kant's words, "This sense

presents even ourselves to consciousness only as we appear to ourselves, not as we are in

ourselves" ("Kritik d. r. V.," B 152-53: Kant's Schriften, III, 120).

This statement follows once we admit, with Kant, that we, qua appearance, are

subject to the same conditions which we, qua active, impose to make appearance

possible. In other words, insofar as the functioning of the ego appears to inner sense, it

has already been subject to a second, hidden functioning which makes this appearance

possible. For Kant, the nature of this ultimate functioning is necessarily shrouded in

mystery. The most that can be said is that it is the constitutive functioning of the ego qua

"transcendental ground" of the possibility of experience. In other words, Kant's

conception of the ego as such a ground and his conception of it as nouminal, i.e., as
 Notes
150

something beyond experience, imply each other. Indeed, as developed by Kant, they are

correlative conceptions.

Husserl's reaction to this final result of the regressive method is one of sharp

disappointment. The attempt to give "an intuitably redeemable sense" to the Kantian

claims about the ultimate conditions for the possibility of experience must be abandoned

once "... we call to mind the Kantian doctrine of inner sense according to which

everything exhibitable in the evidence of inner experience is already formed by a

transcendental function, that of temporalization" (Krisis, Biemel ed., p. 116). Hence,

Husserl's complaint "about the incomprehensibility of the evidence of his regressive

method." For Husserl, the root of this incomprehensibility lies in Kant's unlimited

application of his method. Taken as a method which proceeds from the conditioned to its

conditions, from what is to be grounded to its necessary grounds, it cannot, he believes,

be applied to those things which, for us, are the grounds of all evidence. It cannot, in

other words, be applied to appearance per se. The applicable principle here is, once

again, Fichte's. Given that "the ground lies, by virtue of the mere thought of a ground,

outside of that which is to be grounded," a ground of what counts as evidence cannot,

itself, count as evidence. Otherwise put: an evidential ground of evidence is, in a strict

Fichtean sense, impossible. This does not just express an analytical truth. For Husserl, it

points to the fact that we cannot follow Kant and separate Denken from Erkennen (See

above, ). To "represent" through non-intuitive Denken a ground of evidence is for

Husserl to undermine the notion of evidence itself. If evidence in the strong sense exists,

then it must exhibit the quality of being self-evident (per se nota). It must show itself as

being a last ground for whatever assertion we make -- i.e., as something which declares

itself in need of no further ground outside of itself. To ask for a ground (or reason) for

some evidence is, thus, to declare that it is not evidence in the strong sense of the term.

If we further say with Kant that appearance is for us the basis of our evidence, but it
 Notes
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itself needs to be grounded on what does not appear, we have not just undermined our

notion of what counts as evidence, we have also undercut the ultimate comprehensibility

to ourselves of the arguments we make.

C. Facticity and the a priori in Kant and Husserl.

In its broadest terms, the Husserlian position can be described as a reaction to this

feature of the Kantian method. It embraces, first of all, Husserl's refusal to separate

Denken from Erkennen. This, as we noted, involves his position that the "being in itself"

of the object is equivalent to its being for us in its phenomenal presence. In other words,

such phenomenal presence is understood as the ultimate or final ground for the positing

of being (See above, ). Implicit in this position is the fundamental insight that

grounding (understood as constitution) cannot proceed beyond the phenomenally

apparent. Ultimate appearances cannot themselves be taken as grounded phenomena.

They must rather be taken as something radically given -- i.e., as a final source of

evidence. From this, there results the most basic definition of what phenomenology as a

method is. It is a refusal to step out of the determining priority of appearance. This

brings us to the second feature of the Husserlian reaction. If appearance is to be

considered as a final ground, this means that it cannot be considered as determined in

advance. Rather than being taken as determined by something else, it must be

understood as that which ultimately determines everything else.

The implication of this second feature can be introduced by making a further

comparison between Kant and Husserl. Kant, we can say, must follow his regressive

method in spite of its obscurity. The method is the only way he can accomplish his goal

of grounding the possibility of synthetic a priori judgments. To see this, let us first recall

Kant's statement that the categorical concept or rule, which determines the intuition "with

regard to one form of judgment rather than another, ... can only be represented by a given

logical form of judgment." If we ask why this rule cannot be directly represented, i.e.,
 Notes
152

intuitively inspected, we come to a fundamental proposition on which both Kant and

Husserl agree. It is that such inspection establishes only an instance of a rule. It does not

establish its necessary and universal validity. Thus, inner sense, for Kant, can only give

individual examples of connections between perceptions. It cannot "perceive" and,

hence, intuitively establish -- the necessity and universality of "the given perceptions."

The latter, however, is what is required if we are to ground a universal, categorical rule

and, with this, a universal synthetic judgment based on this rule. This fundamental

proposition is actually a basic insight into the nature of empirically based judgments. All

such judgments are limited by the fact that whatever can be established by experience can

also be overthrown by this same experience. The proof and the refutation are on the

same level, springing as they do from what we experience. Given this, experience per se

contains no guarantee that it will continue to validate the propositions which we draw

from it. For such a guarantee, we require a notion of an a priori of experience. This is

the notion of that which is universally valid -- not by being grounded, like empirical

propositions, on our given experience -- but rather by being the ground of the very

possibility of such experience. The requirement, then, is that of proceeding beyond

experience to its necessary grounds. It is a requirement which only the regressive

method, in its second aspect of proceeding to the nouminal, can ultimately satisfy.

Kant's and Husserl's agreement on this point provides the necessary basis for their

divergent positions. For Kant, the facticity of experience -- i.e., its empirical

contingency -- is not something absolute or ultimate. Determining it in advance is the

nouminal ego, this being conceived as "the transcendental ground of the necessary

lawfulness of all appearances composing an experience" ("Kritik," A 127; Kant's

Schriften, IV, 93). In his "transcendental deduction," the necessity of the categories and,

with this, the necessity of synthetic a priori judgments are deduced from the uncombined

unity of the nouminal ego. It is not to our purpose to give the steps of this deduction.
 Notes
153

We can, however, take note of its two fundamental premises. The first of these is Kant's

position that the ego's unity implies the unity of the appearing world -- i.e., a

"transcendental unity" of the synthesis of the world's appearances. This means that a

violation of the categorical rules for synthesizing appearances into such a unity implies a

corresponding violation of the ego's unity (See above, ). Its second premise is given

by Kant's assertion that synthesis or "combination ... can only be performed by the

subject itself since it is an act of its selfhood" (See above, ). The premise here is that

of the ego (or subject) understood as an active synthesizer, understood, in fact, as the

ground of synthesis per se. As we said, such a ground of synthesis cannot, itself, be a

result of a synthetic process. In acting to combine its experiences into an appearing

world, the ego, then, must be uncombined. It must, in other words, be a simple unity, in

Kant's words, "a thoroughgoing identity." With this, we can say that the necessity of the

categorical rules for synthesis follows from a double implication. The violation of these

rules implies a violation of the ego's unity, but this unity is implicit in the thought of the

ego as the ground of all synthesis. Thus, if synthesis is to occur at all, it must, on these

premises, occur according to the categorical rules. Now, once we do have the necessity

of the categories and that of the corrresponding synthetic a priori judgments, the resulting

rationality (or lawful structure) of the appearing world must also obtain.

This is a rationality which includes, by definition, the universal applicability of

logic, i.e., the logical forms of judgment, to the world. It also includes the necessity of

natural science. In this regard, according to Husserl, the Kantian "presuppositions"

include: "Nature as the necessary product of consciousness [understood] as rational

consciousness. There is not just science as a fact. Science should and must exist.

Absolute consciousness must develop itself so that science is possible" (Ms. B IV 9, p.

15, ca. 1915). For Kant, this absolute consciousness is the individual subject, which, as

nouminal, is the sufficient ground of the lawfulness of the world and, with this, of the
 Notes
154

possibility of a rational (Newtonian) science of this world. Eidetically expressed, the

presupposition here is that the world is essentially determined in advance by its

grounding in the unity of this subject. Given this, we can also say that the eidos "world"

with its necessary rationality precedes and specifies the factual world of experience.

As is well known, all of these positions are explicitly denied by Husserl. His

refusal to follow Kant in his regressive method results in his limiting himself to the

empirical givenness of experience. It, thus, leads him to assert that we cannot establish a

necessary and universally binding a priori for experience. For Husserl, then, the facticity

(the empirical contingency) of experience is absolute or ultimate. He asserts, "The

absolute which we uncover is absolute 'fact' ('Tatsache')" (Ms. E III 9, Nov. 13, 1931;

Intersubj. III, Kern ed., p. 403). From this position flow his denials of the successive

elements of Kant's system. Thus, for Husserl, the pure, self-identical ego is not

determinative of the factual course of experience. Rather than being a ground of the

lawfulness which our actual experience manifests, it is grounded by such. It is, as we

have seen, a "relative" or "dependent" ego. It depends on the "rationality" of experience,

its stable rules of ordering experience, which give it its surrounding world. Concretely

speakng, it depends upon its "life," i.e., on its ordered stream of experiences. Now, this

"life" for Husserl is not such that it could guarantee the necessary continuance of the ego.

It has not the necessary a priori lawfulness. In Husserl's words, "... this life is not a life

which is ideally constructable, not, let us say a 'logical' life" (Ms. B I 32, p. 19, May or

Aug. 1931). Given the ultimacy of facticity, we must, indeed, admit, "'Factual'

consciousness has no law ..." (Ms. D 13 XXI, p. 137, 1907-09). It cannot fall under a

law since, as absolute, the factual experience composing it cannot be prescribed to in

advance.

If we accept this doctrine, there is no possibility of a "transcendental deduction"

in the Kantian sense. Neither the necessity of synthetic a priori judgments nor that of the
 Notes
155

applicability of logic to the world can be deduced from the presence of a pre-given,

unitary subject. Husserl's position on this point dates from the period which follows the

Logical Investigations. Synthetic a priori judgments, if such could be posited, would

have to be considered as posterior to the givenness of experience; but, then, they would

not really be prior in the sense of being prescriptive of experience. Thus, as Husserl

writes in 1908, "The 'synthetic judgments a priori,' understood, however, as essential

laws which are based on the idea of nature (the nature which appears to us or the nature

which is taken as the basis for such types of appearance) naturally cannot prescribe any a

priori rules for the course of experiences ... they rather already presuppose the thesis of a

nature in order that they can be applied" (Ms. D 13 XXI, pp. 27-28, 1907-09). The

presupposition concerns the fact that experience has been so ordered as to make the thesis

of nature possible. As Husserl later expresses this: "And Kant's transcendental questions

concerning synthetic judgments a priori? ... Why must they be valid, whence their

"necessary and universal validity'? ... The factual (Das Factum) to which they can be

made applicable is a subject matter for itself and must itself give an account of itself"

(Ms. K IV 2, pp. 11-12, 1925). In other words, we must first see whether the factual can

instantiate such judgments before we can consider the extent of their validity. Without

this prior account of the factual, synthetic a priori judgments, understood as giving

essential laws, can only present us with possibilities. They express only hypothetical as

opposed to categorical (or absolute) necessities. Thus, Husserl writes, "Facts are, in

principle, incapable of being derived from essential laws; such laws, in the manner of

ideal norms, only specify facts with regard to possibility" (Ms. F I 14, p. 49, June 1911).

They specify, in other words, the possibilities of what would obtain, if certain factual

conditions were, indeed, given. They do not, however, prescribe the obtaining of such

factual conditions. In Husserl's words, "These laws ... cannot pronounce with regard to

an actuality -- i.e., whether or not there exists an actuality which corresponds to them.
 Notes
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Essential laws possess a meaning for the real if something real (an individual being) can

be given which falls under the essences, the ideas" (Ms. D 13 XXI, p. 26, 1907-09).

Husserl's basic position can be expressed as follows. It is that synthetic a priori

judgments, in stating essential necessities, state these only hypothetically. Their

fundamental form is: if the factual course of experience is such as to constitute a unified

world and, with this, a unitary pure ego situated as an experiential center of this world,

then the Kantian laws springing from the presence of this unitary ego do apply. It is, in

other words, only at this point that the synthetic a priori judgments "must" have a

necessary and universal applicability.

Each of the above points may be considered as implicit in the next statement.

Husserl writes:

Let us consider the following: When we proceed from factual nature and factual
consciousness, the phenomenological a priori consists simply in the essences of the types
of consciousness and in the a priori possibilities and necessities based on these essences.
The factual (das Factische) is the course of consciousness. This holds for every case,
whether or not this consciousness be sufficient for the constitution of an exact nature,
i.e., our nature, and whether or not it be, as well, one which requires this. ... It is also
clear, however, that appearances and, in general, the formations of consciousness must
proceed in a determinate manner in order for reason to be able to univocally designate a
nature within them, i.e., indicate that the nature should be placed under them. Prior,
then, to transcendental phenomenology, it is, therefore, a fact that the course of
consciousness is so structured that within it a nature as a "rational" unity can constitute
itself ("Beilage XX: Zur Auseinandersetzung meiner transcendentaler Phaenomenologie
mit Kants Transcendentalphilosophie," 1908, EP I, Boehm ed., p. 393).

The use of the word, "rational," points to the coincidence of the theses of rationality and

positing. For Husserl, as we recall, the positing of being is a "rationally motivated act."

It depends upon the stable rules of ordering experiences and, hence, on the essences
 Notes
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transcendentally conceived as specifying "the essential connections" required for such

positing. Without the "fact" of experience proceeding according to such rules, there is no

actually obtaining a priori of nature; and, hence, there are no universally applicable

synthetic a priori judgments. As we quoted Husserl, these judgments are "understood ...

as essential laws" for the constitution of a nature. They specify the factual according to

the "ideal possibilities" of what can be constituted from its given, empirical course. But

as Husserl asks, "What use are these ideal possibilities which pertain to judgments, to

evidence, and the norms which they afford when a 'senseless tumult' is there, one which,

in itself, does not permit the cognition of a nature?" (Ms. D 13 XXI, p. 138, 1907-09).

Not just nature is dependent on the factual course of consciousness. Without the fact of a

nature "as a rational unity," there is also no ego which could be posited to observe its

collapse into a "senseless tumult" of experiences. Thus, Husserl asks: "What could the

ego be which has no nature facing it, an ego for whom -- if nature is not even given as

something sensibly approximate and yet as a self-persisting illusion -- there would,

instead, be given a mere tumult of sensations?" (Ms. K IV 2, p. 14, Oct. 10, 1925).

Husserl's answer to this question has already been given. The ego cannot exist without

its centering environment. As he writes in the same manuscript, "a complete dissolution

of the world in a 'tumult' is equivalent to the dissolution of the ego ..." (Ibid., p. 10).

With this dependence of both the world and its egological center on the factual

course of experience, Husserl's denial of the remainder of the Kantian system follows as

a matter of course. Logic has not a universal and necessary applicability. It is not valid a

priori. As for the world or "nature," its rationality is not a priori determined. Hence,

natural science, conceived as expressing such rationality, is not essentially necessary, but,

indeed, only a fact. With regard to the validity of the logical laws, Husserl first notes

that "transcendental phenomenology reduces this validity to the essential connections, the

connections of a possible consciousness whose possibilities are given." Here, Husserl's

 Notes
158

position approaches Kant's. As we recall, the logical forms of judgments are embodied

by the synthetic a priori judgments. The latter, for Kant, are also reduced to the essential

-- i.e., to "the necessary and universal" -- connections of consciousness. These are the

essential "connections of the given perceptions" forming the field of a perceiving

consciousness. The agreement ends at this point; since Husserl, with an eye to the factual

course of consciousness, goes on to ask: "Why must the logical laws have field of

applicability? In a factual nature? Transcendental logic, which as transcendental is led

back to consciousness, contains the grounds for a possible nature but none for a factual

nature" ("Beilage XX," 1908, EP I, Boehm ed., p. 394). Since facticity is an ultimate

ground, it cannot be considered as something grounded. Otherwise put: it is itself the

ground of the unities of ego and world which would demand the applicability of logic.

The same point holds for the Kantian conception that the world must be rational.

For Kant, this a priori rationality stems from the rationality of consciousness -- i.e., its

following the categorical rules for combining perceptions. Its ultimate ground is the

nouminal ego conceived as an uncombined combiner. Having denied this basis, Husserl

must assert: "It cannot be demonstrated that consciousness must be rational. It is evident

from the essences of its acts that it must stand under norms. But that, according to ideal

normative laws, there must be produced a unitary and, hence, a rational order of

consciousness, that a nature must be able to exist, ... this is not 'necessary'" (Ms. B I 4, p.

2, 1908-09). In this passage, the norms referred to are only conditional necessities. They

specify the conditions which must obtain if there is to be a unitary, rational order of

consciousness. They do not, however, categorically assert that such conditions must

factually obtain.

Since the possibility of natural science depends upon such obtaining, Husserl

cannot, then, accept the Kantian "presuppositions" he lists in this regard. He cannot

assert: "Nature [exists] as a necessary product of consciousness as rational

 Notes
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consciousness. There does not just exist science as a fact. Science should and must

exist. Absolute consciousness must develop itself so that science is possible" (Ms. B IV

9, p. 15, 1915). Such statements would lead us to the idea of a rational, mathematically

describable nature. This nature would be the only nature possible and would have its

necessary existence from a consciousness which, broadly speaking, would follow a fixed

determinate rule for its syntheses. For Husserl, "Such a fixed rule of consciousness,

which would be indicated by this idea [of nature], need not actually be realized" (Ms. K

IV 2, p. 2', 1925; see also Ibid., pp. 7-8). On the contrary, as he elsewhere remarks, "... it

does not lie within the universal essence of subjectivity that it be related to one nature

and to the ideal, identical, 'the one and the same' nature, just as, on the other hand, [it

does not lie with this essence that] every subject must universally be related or be thought

of as related to the realm of the idealities" -- i.e., the ideal essences and corresponding

logical laws which would serve as norms for the constitution of such a nature (Ms. B IV

12, pp. 9-10, 1920).

The relation Husserl sees between the factual world and the eidos "world"

composed of such idealities should now be clear. It is that "... the fact of the world (das

Factum Welt) ... precedes the essential-eidos world (Weseneidos Welt)." Husserl

explains this by immediately adding: "Every imagined world is already a variant of the

factual and can only be construed as such a variant; therefore, the invariant eidos of all

obtainable variations of the world is bound to the factual" (Ms. E III 9, p. 15, 1929). The

reference to "variations" relates to Husserl's method of intuiting the essences once the

latter are conceived as posterior to the factually given. The method consists in taking an

example of the factually given and varying it in imagination in order to examine the

essential limits of its type of givenness. Thus, to take his standard example, no matter

how we imaginatively vary a spatial-temporal object, its givenness as spatial-temporal

depends upon its appearing perspectivally. Now, for transcendental phenomenology, the
 Notes
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eidos or essence is understood in terms of the "essential connections" of consciousness.

What this signifies with regard to the example is that the connections, which are

essentially required to set up this perspectival appearing, stand as the invariant eidos --

the "one in many" -- of all the imagined modes of givenness in which a spatial-temporal

object can be posited. Since this method starts off with the factually given, its variations

and, hence, the resultant eidos, are by definition bound to the factual. As Husserl later

expresses this, the "factual bares all the possibilities in itself, it contains the universe of

examples which govern all the variations" (Ms. B I 13, vi, p. 2, 1931). The factual, then,

determines the variations by giving them the examples which serve as their necessary

starting points. It provides the factual example which we can imaginatively vary so as to

come up with the possibilities of being.

Let us sum up Husserl's view of the priority of the factual by mentioning three

points which will be crucial for our later remarks. The first is that there is no necessary

essence of perception which could be conceived as determining the factual. If there

were, then such an essence, understood in terms of the Kantian a priori for connecting

perceptions, would require that the subject constitute a specific world with a specifically

given essential structure. The necessity of this structure would be derivable from the

necessary essence of the subject's perceptual processes. Against such a supposition,

Husserl writes: "The existence of the world is a correlate of certain multiplicities of

experience marked out by certain essential formations. But it is not a matter of insight

that actual experience could proceed only in such forms of connections. This cannot be

inferred purely from the essence of perception per se ..." (Ideen I, Biemel ed., p. 114).

This follows because this essence does not present a determining necessity, but only a

possibility of the factual. The realization of this possibility depends on the actual

givenness of a factual course of consciousness. What we have, then, is only a correlation

of possibilities. On the one hand, we have possibilities involving types of experiencing

 Notes
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(or perceiving) consciousness. "Consciousness" here designates the concrete subject and

includes both the ego and its ordered stream of experiences. The ordering of the stream

has a number of possible variations, variations distinct from its present actual ordering

which need not result in the ego's dissolution. On the other hand, we have possibilities

involving types of existent worlds. These can be matched to those involving types of

experiencing consciousness. Thus, as Husserl writes, "... the correlate of our factual

experience, called the 'actual world,' shows itself as a special case of multiple possible

worlds and non-worlds which, on their part, are nothing other than correlates of the

essentially possible variations of the idea of 'experiencing consciousness' with its more or

less ordered connections of experience" (Ibid., p. 111). In other words, the actuality of

our given world with its essential structure is simply the result of the facticity of

experience having realized one of its essential possibilities.

Implicit in the above is the notion that the factually given connections of

experience are themselves variable. It is because these connections in their specific

forms could have been otherwise that the actual consciousness and its actual world are

only special cases, i.e., "possible variations." The status of the actual world as one of

many "possible worlds and non-worlds," thus, occurs in coincidence with the notion of

the contingency of the factual order of things.2 Our second point, then, is that, as

grounded on the contingent connections of consciousness, the world itself has a

contingent character. We have already discussed this character at length. It is one which

leads Husserl to ask, once again in opposition to Kant, "Must there always exist an ego

and a physical nature? Cannot consciousness collapse in a tumult of formations?"

("Beilage XIX, zur Vorlesung: Hat Kant wirklich das Grundproblem der Erkentniskritik

getroffen," 1908, EP I, Bohm ed., p. 393). Given that such "formations" or forms of

connections have no a priori necessity, Husserl's answer is clear. As he writes towards

the end of his career: "But is it not apparent that the being (the actual existence) of
 Notes
162

nature is an open pretension on every level ...? (Ms. K III 2, Oct. 10, 1935). In other

words, we constantly have the possibility that "the unity of nature resolves itself into

nothing" -- i.e., a "non-world" as a possible variant -- "or is itself a desolving, unlawful,

only empirically regulated matter with whose collapse we must come to terms" (Ibid., p.

10). With this, we have what we may call the third aspect of the phenomenological

notion of the contingency of being.

The first aspect was given by us when we noted with Husserl that direct intuition

could never completely establish the thesis of the thing regarded as a noematic bearer or

"pure X." Such intuition could establish the present predicates of the thing, but not its

continual existence as their "bearer." The second aspect came through the

acknowledgement that the ego or subject to whom the thing was given was itself

contingent or dependent on the givenness of "the world of things, of objects." It, thus,

could not serve as its guarantor. Our third aspect essentially coincides with these two

since, like them, it is ultimately based on Husserl's self-imposed limitation to the

givenness of experience. From such empirical givenness, a priori laws cannot be

grounded. Empirical experience cannot per se establish universal and necessary rules.

Such rules, however, are required if we are to establish the thesis of the thing as there,

i.e., as constantly affording us, from its being-in-itself, perceptions of a certain type and

ordering. As we cited Husserl, the thesis of the being-in-itself of a thing involves the

notion of "an infinite process of appearing which is absolutely determined in its essential

type." It involves, in other words, an infinite "continuum of appearances" which "is

thought of as governed throughout by an essential lawfulness" (Ideen I, Biemel ed., p.

351). Now, such "essential lawfulness," considered as applicable ad infinitum, necesarily

requires the postulation of Kant's a priori. It requires what cannot be empirically

established, i.e., "the necessary and universal connections of the given perceptions"

which yield the ongoing intuition of the thing. Husserl's self-limitation to the empirically
 Notes
163

given, thus, denies him the thesis of the inherent actuality of the thing. It makes all

positing of being a presumptive positing (See Ibid., p. 339-39). To put this in terms of

the remarks of our Introduction, we can say that Husserl's self-limitation to the intuitively

given leads him to the equation of being with being-given in intuition. From thence, it

necessarily leads him to the presumptiveness or contingency of being.

The equation of being with being-given is the essential feature of Husserl's

idealism. Our third point is that insofar as this equation leads to the ultimacy of facticity

and its contingency, such idealism must stand oposed to that of Kant and his followers.

As Iso Kern expresses this: "In his interpretation of the facticity of world-constitution or

of the 'ego of transcendental apperception,' Husserl was aware that he was in a

fundamental opposition to German idealism." For the latter, as represented by Kant, the

ego is prior to and determinative of the factual. For Husserl, the reverse is the case.

Regarding the resultant contingency of both the ego and its world, Kern expresses this

opposition as follows:

Insofar as Husserl teaches that world-constitution or, as the case may be, the ego who
possesses the world (the 'ego of transcendental apperception') does not, itself, have a
basis in a transcendental subjectivity which would make this constitution necessary and
permit the positing of the ego itself as necessarily possessing the world -- or, better,
insofar as world-constitution does not have a basis in a transcendental subjectivity which
could guarantee the genesis and continuance of this constitution so that there would not
continually exist for transcendental subjectivity the possibility of the dissolution of the
cosmos and the 'ego of transcendental apperception' -- there results for Husserl a concept
of transcendental idealism which is basically different from those of German idealism
(Husserl u. Kant, pp. 297-98).

§2. Facticity and the Possibility of the Phenomenological Reduction.

A. A transcendental clue
 Notes
164

As is well known, Kant never gave the problem of intersubjectivity any special

attention. The reason for this is clear. This problem, for Kant, is not really one at all,

since its solution falls so directly from his basic assumptions. If we reconstruct this

solution, we find, first of all, that the Kantian approach to the problem is remarkably

similar to Husserl's. But we also find that its solution is one which Husserl cannot

accept.

Insofar as Kant can be said to treat of intersubjectivity, his focus (like Husserl's)

is on the issue of knowing. It concerns the claim of knowledge to objective validity. As

we noted in the Introduction, such knowledge involves Others since for Kant (as for

Husserl) objective and universal validity are considered to be equivalents. A universally

valid judgment holds, not just for ourselves, but, as Kant writes, "holds, in the same way,

for everyone else" ("Prologomena," §18; Kant's Schriften, IV, 298). To claim such

validity for our judgment is, thus, to claim that Others judge (and perceive) as we do.

How is this claim to be secured? Both philosophers attempt this by a reduction to the

subjective, although each understands the results of this reduction in a fundamentally

different manner. Kant's solution is contained in his asertion that the universal validity of

a judgment is secured if, "in this judgment, we know the object (even though, how it may

be in itself, it remains unknown) through the universal and necessary connections of the

given perceptions" (Ibid., §19, IV, 298).

The guarantee, in other words, is provided by the a priori operation of a category

which determines as a rule the connections of perceptions. The rule is understood as that

which first makes possible the synthesis of perceptions into an objective intuition; it is,

thus, seen as a rule which necessarily and universally holds for all intuiting subjects.

Therefore, once we admit its "a priori" character, we also admit Husserl's "harmony of

constitutive systems" -- i.e., the harmony of the perceptual syntheses by which

individuals intuit objects. This harmony, as we recall, places the individuals in an

 Notes
165

intersubjective community. Its objective correlate is the world of shared meanings -- a

"nature" in the Kantian sense.

By virtue of his "fundamental opposition" to German idealism, Husserl cannot

avail himself of this guarantee. His stress on the ultimate character of facticity requires

him to admit that neither "nature" nor the individual ego has any a priori guarantee.

Thus, with regard to the first, he writes: "... that there exists a nature, this is not at all a

priori: this, even though the idea of nature be proposed and the ontological laws

pertaining to it be determined a priori as the logical constituents of this idea" (Ms. D 13

XXI, pp. 25-6, 1907-09). The same point holds with regard to the individual ego.

Speaking of "facts and possibilities (eidetic data)," he notes that "on the lowest level, we

do not yet have an ego, a person, a physical thing, a physical and a mental world" (Ibid.,

p. 124). For Husserl, there is no a priori guarantee that the factual and the possibilities it

contains will ever result in these. With this, we may formulate the special problem

which facticity presents to Husserl. If the facutal course of an individual consciousness

is completely undetermined, it must be regarded as purely self-determining or

spontaneous in its formation of connections. At this point, however, there is no

possibility of an intersubjective harmony. Two pure spontaneities [of two distinct factual

courses of consciousness] can only accidentally and only for a time agree. In this

situation, an appeal to "eidetic data" (Wesensgegebenheiten) is no help at all in

establishing a harmony of constitutive systems. Since the essence is posterior to

facticity, it expresses only a possibility: the possibility of Others being like oneself if

their factual courses of consciousness are the same. The establishment of a genuine

intersubjectivity requires not just the bare possibility of Others. It requires that the

conditions be given for their actually constituting as I do. It, thus, requires a real

similarity in the factual courses of consciousness that are present in myself and Others;
 Notes
166

for only then would the essential possibilities which I find in myself be considered as

actualizable in Others as well.

Given this conclusion, we have a certain transcendental "clue" regarding the

direction which Husserl must follow. It is one that we have remarked upon twice before.

The first reference concerned the assertion that transcendental subjectivity "does not

acknowledge an outside." This implies that to know such subjectivity, we must, in some

sense, come into coincidence with it, i.e., approach it from the "inside". The second

concerned the reveral of the Seinsrede.) This signified that the ultimately constituting

subjectivity, as a ground of objective, individual being, could not itself be described in

terms of such being. It must, instead, be considered as pre-objective and pre-individual.

In distinction to the numerical singularity of objective being, it itself must be taken as a

unique singularity. Here, we may express the same general point of departure in terms of

facticity. The above mentioned "problem" of facticity arises from locating its pure

spontaneity in the objectively individual subject. This makes the intersubjective

harmony between individual subjects only accidentally possible. To place the pure,

undetermined spontaneity of facticity in the individual is, at best, to consider facticity

and individuality as on the same level. At worst, it is to consider facticity as determined

by the individual. Granting, however, the ultimate quality of facticity as well as the

grounded quality of individual being, neither notion is warranted. Facticity can exist, on

the lowest level, without there being "an ego, a person, a physical thing ..." As the

"absolute" which Husserl uncovers, it is to be taken as the ground of these. The direction

which Husserl is compelled to take is, thus, clear. Our "clue" is that since Husserl cannot

proceed beyond facticity in his attempt to establish an intersubjectivity, he must proceed

beyond objective individuality. The solution, in other words, must come from an

examination of facticity per se, facticity as a prior determinant of individual being.

B. Facticity and the "thought experiment" of the reduction

 Notes
167

How is such an examination to be accomplished? Our general claim is that the

phenomenological reduction can be conceived as a response to the problem facticity

poses for the establishment of an intersubjectivity. Let us put this in terms of a remark

which we made in the Introduction. We asserted "that the reduction, which raises the

problem of transcendental solipsism, overcomes this problem when pursued to the end"

(See above, ). It raises the problem because it is mistakenly conceived as reduction

to experiences solipsistically regarded as those which are mine and no one else's. As we

shall see, it overcomes this problem because, when we do pursue it to the end, it passes

beyond the objective individuality which is implicit in such words as "mine." It uncovers

the ground of such individuality in the impersonal facticity of experience. Now, the very

possibility of the reduction accomplishing this task rests on the following point: the

reduction, as Husserl conceives it, is impossible without the ultimacy of facticity. As

dependent on this last, it cannot take itself as a reduction to personal or private

experiences. This follows because its dependence on a truly prior facticity is its

dependence on a level on which there is not yet an ego which could serve as a solipsistic

reference point for the experience it uncovers.

To establish this, we must first take note of the use Husserl makes of the

reduction in Ideen I. It is that of overcoming the "general thesis" of the natural attitude.

According to this, the world which confronts us is independently "there" (da),

independently "available" (Vorhanden) for our various activities. As Husserl notes, this

is a perfectly general thesis, one underlying any particular thesis about an object's

existence or its specific qualities. It is assumed as an "attitude," a stance which is taken

up prior to any explicit thinking about objects. Husserl formulates it in the following

words:
 Notes
168

The presently perceived, the clearly or obscurely presented [entity] -- in short, everything

from the world of nature which is experientially known before any [explicit] thought --

all this bears, in its totality and in every one of its articulated features, the character of

being "there," of being "available." This is a character which essentially permits the

establishment of an explicit (predicative) judgment of existence, a judgment agreeing

with itself (Ideen I, Biemel ed., pp. 63-64). This agreement is with the character of being

there or available. The object, which is asserted to exist, is asserted as there, as available

to us -- this, whether or not we notice it, i.e., actually experience it.

When we inquire into our own availability, the answer of the natural attitude

depends on how we take our being. If we take it as the being of a spatial-temporal

object, our availability is simply that of a part of the spatial-temporal world. Within the

natural attitude, my assertion is: "I find constantly available, as something facing me (als

mein Gegenüber), the one spatial-temporal reality (Wirklichkeit) to which I myself

belong as do all other persons found within it and related in the same way to it" (Ibid., p.

63). We are related to it as parts of the same whole. As for the whole, it is the world;

and in the natural attitude, "'The' world, as reality, is always there ..." (Ibid.). If,

however, I take my being, not as a thing, but rather as the experiences I have of things,

my availability or thereness has a different character. The availability of the experiences

making up my field of consciousness is dependent on the availability of that of which

they are experiences. Consciousness, here, is a kind of mirror. The contents which

distinguish it are only there by virtue of the thereness of the entity whose presence is

reflected in it. Thus, taken as a field of experiences, consciousness has only a dependent

being. Its availability is that of its object; it is there only if its object is present.

Husserl, in arguing against this position, proposes what can be called a thought

experiment. The experiment consists of disordering, in thought, the connections by

which we experience objects. In Husserl's words: "Let us imagine ourselves performing

 Notes
169

apperceptions of nature, but such as are continually invalid, apperceptions which are

cancelled in the process of further experience; let us imagine that they do not allow of the

harmonious connections in which experiential unities could constitute themselves for us"

(Ideen I, Biemel ed., p. 132). Objectively speaking, the result is that, in thought at least,

"the whole of nature" has been "destroyed"; and this includes the "animate organisms"

(Leiber) of myself and Others conceived of as parts of the natural world. In other words,

with the disordering, "there are no more animate organisms and, with this, no human

beings (Menschen). As a human being, I would no longer exist and a fortiori there

would not exist for me fellow humans" (Ibid., p. 133). All the ordered connections

which allowed me to posit an incarnate person as a spatial-temporal reality have, thus,

been nullified. Now, subjectively speaking, the results of this disordering can be

extended to the interpretation of experiences as mental states or psychological conditions

of a person. In Husserl's words, "If there would be something still remaining which

could permit the apprehension of the experiences as "states" of a human ego --

experiences in whose changes identical human mental traits manifested themselves -- we

could also think of these interpretations as robbed of their existential validity

(Seinsgultigkeit). The experiences, then, would remain as pure experiences ... Even

mental states (Auch psychische Zustände) point back to the ordering of the absolute

experiences in which they constitute themselves ..." (Ibid.). The result is the cancellation

of any positing of a "mental personality, mental characteristics, mental experiences or

real mental states" (Ibid., p. 134). It is the dissolution of what Husserl calls the "personal

ego" -- i.e., the ego of the ordered connections which form the cogito. This experiment,

by which Husserl actively attempts to conceive what he elsewhere speaks of as "the

dissolution of the world in a 'tumult'," leaves us, in fact, with no ego at all. Its final result

is thought of as "pure" or "absolute" experiences from which no individual unities are

capable of being constituted. Otherwise put, what we have here are simply experiences
 Notes
170

whose connections have been abstracted from all ordering principles. Husserl, in the

Ideen, continues to call the stream of such experiences "consciousness." Yet the term

now has the sense of an egoless streaming. It denotes simply the elements from which

positing would occur if they were ordered into definite patterns.

Once we have achieved this abstraction, what have we accomplished? For

Husserl, the first result of this experiment is the reverse of the thesis of the natural

attitude. We can still think of consciousness as "there" in its component experiences,

even when we disorder the patterns which make these into experiences of some thing.

Thus, consciousness, in the above defined sense, continues to be there, available for our

thought after we have eliminated the conditions for the availability of the thing.

Granting this, how can we say that, in principle, the availability of consciousness

depends on the availability of the thing, that its Dasein has as its essential condition the

latter's Dasein? As the experiment reveals, the dependence is actually the reverse. The

presence of the thing depends upon the presence of the ordered connections of

consciousness. As for consciousness itself, its presence is that of something "absolute" --

absolute in the sense that "... it requires in principle no 'thing' in order to exist" (Ideen I,

Biemel ed., p. 115). As Husserl expresses this:

... it is evident that the being of consciousness, that of the stream of experience per se,
would indeed be modified by a destruction of the world of things, but it would not be
disturbed in its own existence. Modified, certainly! For the destruction of the world
correlatively means precisely this: that certain, ordered experiential connections and
also, correspondingly, certain connections of the theorizing reason which orient
themselves according to the former connections in the stream ... would be excluded. But
this does not imply that other experiences and connections of experiences would be
excluded (Ibid.).
 Notes
171

In other words, what is absolute is the stream itself; this, no matter what possible

connections happen to obtain.

This absolute quality is also expressed by Husserl in terms of the doctrine that

consciousness cannot be considered to have an outside. In Husserl's words, "...

consciousness, considered in 'purity,' must count as a self-contained connection of being

(Seinszusammenhang), as a connection of absolute being into which nothing can enter

and from which nothing can slip away, a connection which has no spatial-temporal

outside ..." (Ideen I, Biemel ed., p. 117). This lack of an "outside" follows from the fact

that the spatial-temporal world and, hence, the whole basis for the notions of "inside" and

"outside", is considered as constitutively dependent on the prior presence of "experiences

and connections of experiences." Considered in its "purity," consciousness allows of all

possible connections, including those which result in the notion of an "inside" and

"outside." Thus, the thought of a world as "beyond" it, as there "outside" of it, "is an

absurdity." (Ibid.). In fact, what we have here is the thought of consciousness as the

ground of the world. This result immediately reveals the nature of Husserl's thought

experiment. The latter is nothing more nor less than the actual practice of the reduction,

regarded in its second, ontological sense. As we quoted Celms, this sense is "the leading

back of objective (transcendent) being to the being of the corresponding modes of

consciousness" (Der phaen. Idealismus Hus., ed. cit., p. 309). These modes are the ways

in which experiences can be connected to make possible the presence of objective being.

Thus, the "being" to which constituted entities are led back is not that of the individual

ego considered in its pure, personal or real aspects. The thought experiment, which

results in the dissolution of the ego's surrounding world in a "tumult" of disordered

experiences, reveals the dependence of both the ego and its world on such connections. 3

Once we disorder the latter, what remains as "absolute" -- i.e., as unconditionally given --

is simply the experiences themselves, the experiences in their factual givenness.

 Notes
172

C. The premise of facticity

When we ask for the condition of the possibility of this reduction -- i.e., for the

guarantee that it can reach this "absolute" -- we come to the claim we made above: the

reduction is impossible without the ultimacy of facticity. Here, we can say that the

reduction is in the curious position of uncovering the grounds of its own possibility of

performance. To make this concrete, let us recall that it is this ultimacy which makes

Husserl declare that there is no a priori, determining essence of perception. Because of

this, "it is not," for Husserl, "a matter of insight that actual experiences can proceed only

in such connections" -- i.e., those connections which give us a coherent world (Ideen I,

Biemel ed., p. 114). Once we admit this, then the crucial step of the thought experiment

can be made. This is given by Husserl's assertion that the exclusion of these connections

"does not imply that other experiences and connections of experiences would be

excluded" (Ibid., p. 115). Indeed, admitting that any and every type of connection is

possible, the thought experiment can proceed to its end. If there is no a priori, binding

form for the connections of experience, then we can conceive of the dissolution of

everything posited through such connections. In Husserl's words, the lack of such a form

signifies that

it is thinkable that experience -- and not just for us, but rather inherently -- teems with
unresolvable contradictions, that experience, all at once, shows itself as obstinately
opposed to the demand that its positings of things should ever harmoniously persist. It is
thinkable that experiences' connections should forfeit the stable rules of ordering
perspectives, apprehensions and appearances and that this actually remains ad infinitum
the case, in short, that there no longer exists a harmoniously positable and, hence,
existing world (Ibid.).
 Notes
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Thus, once we assert the ultimacy of facticity and, correlatively, deny the existence of

any a priori (categorical) rules for connecting perceptions, two results follow. We have,

first of all, the possibility of conceiving experiences in abstraction from any binding

forms. We also have the possibility of conceiving such experiences in abstraction from

the world which is constituted through such forms. This second result is the possibility

of the reduction to the "absolute" consciousness conceived as a stream of "pure"

experiences, a stream which is independent of any given world.

We can put this in the negative by noting that the denial of the absolute quality of

facticity is equivalent to the assertion of an a priori form for perception. This follows

since this absolute quality is facticity's character of not being determined beforehand --

i.e., of not standing under a priori rules. If there are such rules pertaining to what is

factually given in perception, then the latter has a determining form. If it does, we have

the cogivenness of consciousness and the world. Thus, in our present state, we actually

intuit a world or "nature" in the Kantian sense. If the connections of experiences by

which this is accomplished are a priori determined, then the givenness of the field of

consciousness necessarily implies such connections and hence implies the givenness of

the world which is constituted through these. At this point, the revesral of the natural

attitude's thesis becomes impossible. There is no possibility of a reduction to a

consciousness which is "absolute" -- i.e., independent of the Vorhandensein of the world.

On this premise, both consciousness and the world are always co-available.

The same sort of argument can be applied to Husserl's reversal of the Seinsrede.

As we said, the reversal's point is the de-absolutation of individual, objective being. For

Husserl, such being is only "second." It is constitutively dependent on the being which is

"first" -- i.e., that of consciousness considered as absolute. The fundamental principle of

this reversal, as we quoted Fink, is that individual, worldly "being is, in principle,

constituted ..." ("Proposal," ed. cit., p. 196; F. 201). We, thus, have to say, "The world,
 Notes
174

taken as the totality of real being, ... with the multiplicity of being as stone, plant, animal

and human, ... is only a moment of that absolute." We assert, in other words, that "the

world has the sense of a constituted product, that, hence, it presents only a relative

'totality' in the universe of constitution" (Ibid., pp. 174-75; F. 175). Now, the world

could not be de-absolutized or made relative if consciousness were determined a priori to

produce it. Such determination would result in the co-givenness of consciousness and

the world. It would, thus, imply that the "thereness" and "availability" of consciousness

is not prior to the "thereness" and "availability" of the world and, hence, that

consciousness cannot be considered as "first" and the world as "second."

Implicit in this is the fact that when we do take consciousness as "first," we

understand it as a streaming field of pure experiences. The reversal of the Seinsrede

which takes it as "first" is, in other words, an implicit reduction. It states the reduction's

conclusion which is that this field is "first"by virtue of being the constitutive ground of

everything else. Granting this, the reversal must, like the explicit reduction, presuppose

the ultimacy of facticity.

Let us express this presupposition in terms of the independence of the ground

from the grounded. Consciousness is "first" because of its independence of what it

grounds. As a streaming field, it "needs no thing" i.e., no constituted result of its action

-- "in order to exist." Now, if we take the practice of the reduction as that of

"bracketing" or suspending in thought the experiential connections which result in the

presence of the thing, we can see how the reduction demands such independence.

Without this, the point of its performance is lost. Thus, in suspending the connections

between experiences, its aim is to examine the experiences themselves. If, however, the

experiences were bound to the connections which form them into a synthetic unity,

bound so that their own presence depended upon the presence of such connections, they

could not be independently regarded. In this event, the thought experiment of the
 Notes
175

reduction would not yield a residuum. The dissolution of the world in a tumult would be

equivalent not just to the dissolution of the connections through which it is posited, but

also to that of the experiences which occurred in such connections. It would, in other

words, leave us with nothing at all. Since we do have a residuum, we can say that the

pure experiences are independent of their connections. With this, we can assert the

ultimacy of facticity since it follows that such experiences are independent in

determining what, if anything, results from their streaming.

The same line of reasoning holds for constitution. Understood as a process of

grounding, it, too, implies Fichte's axiom of grounding: namely that the ground is both

distinct from and independent of what it grounds. Thus, if the ground -- i.e., the separate

constituting phenomena -- were not distinct from the grounded, then the constitutive

process would not result in anything new. It would be a process of mere collecting and

reassembling. It would not result in the presence of a synthetic unity with new

characteristics -- e.g., those of perspectival appearing. Furthermore, if the lower levels of

phenomena were not independent of the unities which they constitute, the constitutive

process would be impossible. As we recall, the process is the reverse of the reduction. It

is one of lower levels of phenomena successively constituting through their connections

ever higher levels. Thus, as the reduction descends level by level by bracketing the

connections which result in each level, so constitution progressively ascends by

establishing such connections. Its highest point is the thing with all its predicates and

external relations. It is its being in the world. Now, if the lower levels were dependent

on the higher in the sense that their givenness demanded the later, then the distinction

between the constituted and the constituting would collapse. We could no longer

distinguish between constituting experience and constituted object since our experiences

would not be there, available to us, without those connections which resulted in the

thereness of the object. At this point, we could no longer speak of constitution as the
 Notes
176

progressive, ongoing production of something new -- i.e., the object as opposed to the

experiences we have of it. The very logic of its notion, thus, demands that the

constitution have the same premise as the reduction: that of the independence of the

constituting phenomena vis-a-vis what they constitute. The givenness of the former does

not necessarily demand the givenness of the latter, since the former can exist apart from

the latter. This, of course, is what we should expect. It follows from constitution and the

reduction being the reverse of each other. Both concern the same character of worldly

being, even though they regard it from opposite perspectives. The one concerns itself

with its possible dissolution, the other with its ongoing production. But they both

presuppose the facticity of the experiential grounds for its presence.

To see how deeply embedded this premise is in Husserl's teachings, we may

mention two further doctrines. The first is that of the dependence of the ego on its

surrounding world. This dependence is actually dependence of both ego and world on

the ordered connections of consciounsess. To establish this, we have to perform the

reduction. It is the latter which reduces consciousness to a pre-egological streaming,

thereby showing the dependence of the ego on this streaming. Thus, if we make the

reduction impossible by denying the ultimacy of facticity -- or, what is the same, by

denying the independence of the elements of constituting consciousness -- we close off

the method by which we can exhibit that the individual ego requires its world, i.e.,

requires the experiences and connections which establish this world.

The second doctrine which is embedded in the premise of facticity is Husserl's

teaching that all constituted unities are contingent. The premise is that last grounds of

such unities -- i.e., the ultimate elements of experience -- are ultimately factual. This

means that they display with regard to the whole of the constituted world an

unconditioned givenness. It also means that none of the levels of constitution which may

follow them must do so as a matter of a priori necessity. Thus, the results of the
 Notes
177

constitutive process must, one and all, be regarded as contingent. They may or may not

be constituted -- and this, no matter what level constitution has attained. This follows

because the phenomena on one level are not dependent on the connections which result in

the constitution of the next. Granting this, we have to say with Husserl, "But is it not

apparent that the being (the actual existence) of nature is an open pretension on every

level ... ?" (Ms. K III 2, Oct. 10, 1935, italics added). To express the same point in an

equivalent fashion, we may note again that insofar as the constituting ground is

considered as independent, it has no necessary tie to its constituted results. Given the

ground, we are not necessarily given the grounded. The final assertion of Husserl's

thought experiment -- i.e., that "consciousness requires no 'thing' in order to exist" -- is

based on this point. The prior availability of consciousness, considered as an absolute

field of experiential elements, is based on the fact that its own givenness does not

demand that a constituted world also be given. Thus, from the point of view of the

ground, the presence of the grounded must be regarded only as a contingent and never as

a necessary result.

With this, we come to the fourth aspect of the phenomenological notion of the

contingency of being. It is one which encompasses the three which we have hitherto

mentioned (See above, ). The contingency of being springs, phenomenologically,

from the separation of experience and object, of ground and grounded, which is inherent

in the constitutive process that results in being. The basis of contingency is, then, the

independence of the "absolute" consciousness which functions as the constitutive ground

of objective being. We, thus, have to say that such an "absolute" can only ground

contingencies since its character, as an absolute which the reduction can uncover,

involves necessarily the notion of its undetermined independence or, what is the same, its

ultimate facticity.
 Notes
178

§3. Absolute and Individual consciousness.

A. The absolute in itself

When we turn to this absolute in itself, there are a number of characterizations

which come to the fore. The first of these is that it is a concrete expression of what is

implied by the reversal of the Seinsrede. The reversal signifies not just the de-

absolutization of individual, objective being, but also the grounding of such on the being

which is pre-individual and pre-objective. Absolute consciousness is the latter -- at least

when we consider it as a field of experiences whose connections have been suspended by

thought. So considered, it needs no "thing" in order to exist. Indeed, the experiences

comprising its being must be considered as pre-individual and pre-objective precisely

because they are prior to such "things," constituting them by their connections.

We can develop this last remark into a definite conception of the absolute's

unique singularity by considering again what is involved in individual (non-unique)

unity. As we earlier noted, Husserl places the basis of this unity in the constituting

connections of consciousness and not in the experiences and perceptual predicates taken

in isolation (See above, ). The latter are not what we intend when we intend the

"meant as such" -- i.e., the existing individual. Our intentions pass from experience to

object, from perceptual predicate to its "bearer." The former have, in this context, the

character of universality with regard to the latter. Thus, our experiences, taken in

isolation, can be considered as experiences of any number of objects. The same holds for

the perceptual predicates. They, too, can be taken as one thing applicable to many -- i.e.,

many possible "bearers" of their specific senses. In aiming at the individual entity, rather

than at such "universal" features, our intention comes to rest on the point of

interconnection between these features. It is their connections which make these

universal elements into features of one specific entity. Granting that the thesis of

objective individuality is a thesis concerning the obtaining of such connections, it cannot

 Notes
179

be made on the level of the experiences whose connections have been suspended in

thought. Such experiences, then, must be regarded as pre-individual, i.e., as before the

possibility of the thesis of objective individuality.

Another way of expressing the above is to say that the being of such experiences

is not that of one among many things, but rather that of one in many things. What is one

among many the character of numerical singularity. It is the sort of being which always

involves a beyond. When we attempt to conceive of it as a totality, we conceive of it as a

plurality of individual beings, one which always allows the addition of further members.

Thus, to take an example, the totality of men, conceived as a totality of individual beings,

is simply a collection. One can always conceive of adding another man to this collection,

and this addition is its real enrichment. We can also say that within the categories of

numerically singular being, the totality represents the numerical sum of non-unique

individuals. The fact that this sum can always be added to signifies that we cannot,

within these categories, grasp being as a unique singular -- i.e., a singular not having a

beyond. To achieve a conception of the latter, we must focus on the common elements

of being -- the elements which show themselves as one in many. This is being as a

predicable sense and, ultimately, being as an experience considered in isolation from its

connections. In strictly phenomenological terms, this point follows because sense, taken

as a predicate noema, has as its basis a connected multiplicity of experiences. Further

connections with other such multiplicities would make it the sense of some one existent.

It is when we think of it in abstraction from these further connections that it becomes

predicable of many existents. A fortiori, we have the one in many (or universal)

character of the separate experiences. Regarded apart from the connections which form

them into a predicate noema, they can apply to many such noemata and, hence, to the

multitude of objects which are apprehended through the connections of such noemata

(See Ideen I, Biemel ed., p. 322).

 Notes
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Now, such senses and experiences are unique singulars vis-a-vis the multiplicities

in which they are present. Thus, to grasp the totality of men as a uniquely singular

whole, we must apprehend it in terms of the predicable sense which defines its individual

members. We here conceive of the sense as determining which entities are to count as

members of the totality. So conceived, it cannot be enriched by the mere addition of

entities which fall under its notion. The same is the case with regard to the experience.

The multiplication of noemata and, ultimately, of things which exemplify its content

does not result in its own multiplication as such a content. It remains one thing, an

experience with a specific content, which continues to be present in many noemata and,

hence, in many intended objects. The focus on the being which does not have a

"beyond" is, thus, a focus on unconnected senses and, ultimately, on the unconnected

experiences (understood as experiential contents) forming these senses. Only such being,

as one in many, is not meaningfully multiplied by the many. In other words, since it

does not possess the individuality of things, it is not multipliable in the way they are and,

hence, does not possess a "beyond" as the latter do when they are grasped as collections

or numerical sums. Another man can always be added to the sum of man. But there is

only one defining sense of this collection if it is to be grasped as an all embracing totality

of a specific sort of entity. Granting this conclusion, these senses (and, a fortiori, the

unconnected experiences composing them) give us a concrete expression of the being

pointed to by the reversal of the Seinsrede. Such unconnected elements manifest with

regard to the beings of the world the quality of unique singularity, of not having a

beyond. This, however, is precisely what we require to distinguish them from the

numerical singularity of the individual beings which they form through their connections.

A second characteristic of Husserl's absolute can be introduced by recalling his

statement, "The absolute which we uncover is absolute 'fact' ('Tatsache')" (Ms. E III 9,

ca. Nov. 13, 1931, HA XV, Kern ed., p. 403, ca. Nov. 13, 1931). According to Husserl,
 Notes
181

"Facts (Tatsachen) are 'contingent'; they can just as well not be, they could be otherwise"

(LU, Tueb. ed., I, 122). As he elsewhere writes, this contingency embraces "every fact

(Factum) and, thus, also the fact of the world ..." (EP II, Boehm ed., p. 50). If this is so,

the question arises whether or not this embraces the absolute. Is the latter, qua fact, itself

contingent? Husserl's answer to this question is based on the "absolute" character of this

fact -- i.e., its character of being a ground for everything else. He writes: "The absolute

has its ground in itself; and, in its non-grounded being (groundlosen Sein), it has its

absolute necessity as the single, 'absolute substance.' ... All essential necessities are

moments of its fact (Factum), are modes of its functioning in relation to itself -- its

modes of understanding itself or being able to understand itself" (Ms. E III 9, Nov. 5,

1931, HA XV, p. 386). The import of this statement can be grasped by noting the nature

of the absolute when it is characterized as an ultimate ground. So characterized, it

appears as a ground of factual contingencies, possibilities, and essential necessities. In

itself, however, it escapes all of these characteristics. Thus, to predicate contingency of

an object, we must regard it under the aspect of possibility. This is regarding it as a

"this," rather than a "that," both of which are considered as equally possible for it. To

take an example, to regard it as a contingent fact that an object is here, we must view it as

here rather than there, and consider both locations as possible for it. Now, the

experiences of consciousness, when separated in thought, are not objects considered

under the aspect of possibility. They are rather this aspect of possibility itself. They are,

in other words, that by virtue of which we can consider individual things as contingent.

Noetically, they are the ground of the possibility of any number of definite experiential

contexts. Noematically, they can function in the constitution of any number of objects.

By themselves, they are indifferent to the cogitationes and corresponding cogitata which

they can come together to form. These last, for Husserl, are merely expressions or, as he
 Notes
182

sometimes says, concrete "externalizations" of the possibilities contained in the pure

experiences.

Here, we must recall that it is the separation of experience and object -- i.e., the

lack of any essential necessity in the tie between them -- which permits the experiences

to exist in any number of connected contexts. The ground of the possibility of such

multiple contexts is the independent being of these separately regarded experiences. It is

because this being is independent -- i.e., has no further ground determining it, that

Husserl can call it a grundloses Sein. Its "absolute necessity" signifies its not being

contingent on the obtaining of any further grounds or conditions. Thus, it cannot be

considered as being determined in advance to produce a single "actual" world. Here, the

arguments by which Husserl seeks to establish absolute consciousness as a grounding

field of experiences, as a field which establishes individual being, have as a consequence

the contingency of such being. This means that the specific world which our connected

experiences form is merely possible, i.e., a contingent fact in the sense that it is possible

for it either to be or not be. To reverse this, we can say that the world's relation to its

ground, considered as a ground of mere possibility, is the reason why we can proceed

from the world's character of factual contingency to the absolute character of

consciousness considered as a ground of the world. The world's status as a mere

possibility and the ground's status as an "absolute necessity" are, therefore, concepts

implying each other. Hence, to view the given world in terms of its ground is to view it

under the aspect of possibility.

Given the above, the absolute, rather than being conceived as a mere possibility,

must be regarded as the possibility of all possibilities. A mere possibility requires a

ground for its actually obtaining. It is contingent upon the conditions which result in its

particular realization. The absolute, insofar as it is "ground-less" or unconditioned,

cannot be in this position. It is, through the connections which may obtain between its
 Notes
183

elements, itself the condition of the possibility of all possible worlds and non-worlds.

We cannot, then, assert that such worlds are by chance, in the sense that their absolute

condition is itself a chance, i.e., something contingent. As Husserl writes, "... chance

(Zufall) includes in itself a horizon of possibilities in which the contingent (das

Zufällige) signifies one of the possibilities, the very one which has actually occurred"

(Ms. C I, Intersubj. III, Kern ed., Sept. 21-22, 1934). The contingent implies such a

horizon because, grasped as contingent, it is grasped as a "this" rather than a "that." Its

very notion, then, includes the horizon of the "that" -- i.e., the possible ways it could

have existed. As such, its notion points to the possibility which includes all possibilities.

It points to the grounding field of experiences whose "pure" possibility remains after all

possible worlds have been rendered impossible by the suspension of this field's

connections. This remaining possibility -- which is actually an unconditioned necessity

-- cannot itself be contingent since it is, in fact, a ground of contingency. It is that which

we think of when we regard this object or world as contingent, as something "merely"

possible and, hence, as implying the possibility of the "that."

This leads to the characterization of the absolute as the horizon of all horizons.

Here, it is thought of as the ground of all possible experiential horizons. The notion of a

horizon has been extensively elaborated by Husserl. Its basic concept is that of a series

of experiences which have been connected and, in their connections, determine the

further experiences which can join this series. Thus, in the appearing of a spatial-

temporal object, the experiences which we have grasped form the actually experienced

portion of a larger horizon. This horizon is composed of the experiences which can "fit

in" with the perspectival views we have already had. Such fitting in signifies, negatively,

that they do not undermine the theses already made concerning the object of experience.

Positively, it signifies that they join with our previous experiences so as to more closely

determine the object's sense. Every real object, taken as a unity of sense, has its horizon
 Notes
184

of possible experiences which, in their "points of unification," continue to enrich and

define its sense.

This horizon is not just "internal" to the object; it is also what Husserl calls

"external." In the latter case, it concerns the individual object in its numerical

singularity, i.e., in its being one among the many objects of the world. As Husserl

describes this:

The individual -- relative to consciousness -- is nothing for itself; perception of a thing is

its perception in a perceptual field. And just as the individual thing has a sense in
perception only through an open horizon of "possible perceptions," ... so once again the
thing has a horizon: an "external horizon" in relation to the "internal"; it has this precisely
as a thing of a field of things; and this finally points to the totality, "the world as a
perceptual world" (Krisis, 2nd Biemel ed., p. 165).

The experiences forming the external horizon link the sense of the object to senses of the

objects composing its surrounding world. The object thereby acquires its worldy sense

of acting upon other objects as well as having others act upon it. Even more importantly,

it is by virtue of this horizon that the object has the sense of one among many, its sense

as an individual member of objects with similar senses.

Regarding the absolute in terms of this notion, several things can be said. The

first is that the experiences forming the field of the absolute are the ground of every

possible experiential context. It is by virtue of their possible connections that they form

a possible horizon of experiences. Separately regarded, i.e., regarded apart from the

specific connections which they can form, they thus can be regarded as an ultimate

horizon, one which involves all possible horizons in the manner of a ground. Here, of

course, we must add that just as the possibility of all possibilities is not itself a "mere"

possibility, so this absolute horizon does not have the same sense as the horizons it
 Notes
185

grounds. The sense of the latter involves the notion of specific types of connections --

e.g., the perspectival. The final or absolute horizon abstracts from all specifically given

connections. Its sense includes the notion of connection as an undifferentiated genus. In

other words, its all-inclusivity is a function of this lack of differentiation. Such all-

inclusivity is, in fact, what allows it to function as the ground of the numerically singular

being of the thing. As all-embracing, the final horizon grounds the internal and external

horizons which define such being.

The external horizon pertains to the thing "as a thing in the field of things" -- i.e.,

as a one among many. This "many" does not just refer to the things which are given in

an actual perceptual field. It refers as well to things with similar senses which could be

given through possible variations of this perceptual field. Thus, it includes, for example,

the variations of spatial and temporal position which would yield the thing as "there"

instead of "here," as "then" instead of "now." This cannot be otherwise since all the

determinations which would limit the final horizon to presenting just one set of objects or

conditions are foreign to its notion as an unconditioned ground. Thus, its grounding of

the thing as one among many includes, a fortiori, all the many possible ways by which

the thing could be given as a member of its class. With this, we may note that just as the

thought of a thing's contingency implies the thought of the absolute as containing all the

possibilities which the thing could have but did not realize, so the thought of the thing in

terms of its horizon of possible experiences implies the thought of the absolute as its final

horizon. In involving all the possible experiences involved in the thing's internal and

external horizons, this latter thought embraces the entire "perceptual world" with all the

possibilities of experience this involves. Such possibilities are the same as those of the

final horizon when we take our given, actually perceived world as contingent. Once we

do, the horizon of this world must be extended to include all the possible worlds which
 Notes
186

happen not to be actualized. So extended, it reaches its terminus in the final horizon

which embraces as a ground all possible world horizons.

For Husserl, the same conclusion follows even when we take up the natural, pre-

philosophical attitude and deny this contingency. In such an attitude, we regard the

world as all that there is -- i.e., as the absolute totality of existents which forms, qua

totality, a unique singular. So conceived, it cannot be contingent, since there is nothing

external to itself which could determine it -- i.e., determine it to become other than itself.

Husserl counters this view by examining what it implies. He asserts that the thing's

horizon still terminates in the absolute or final horizon; for, in maintaining that the world

exists as a unique singular, we have implicitly transformed its thesis. The thesis of the

world becomes equivalent to that of the final horizon.

Let us consider, for a moment, Huserl's arguments in this regard. As he observes,

if we do consider the world as all there is, then it cannot exist in the same way as an

individual thing. The latter is always one among many, but we are taking the world as

"the totality (All) of things ..." (Krisis, 2nd Biemel ed., p. 145). Thus, as the all-

embracing totality which cannot have a beyond, "... the world does not exist like an

entity, an object, but exists in a singularity for which the plural is senseless" (Ibid., p.

146). Granting this distinction in the manner of their being, "... there is," he concludes,

"fundamental distinction in the way in which we are conscious of the world and the way

in which we are conscious of the thing ..." (Ibid.). In apprehending the thing, we regard

it in terms of the horizon of possible experiences, i.e., the experiences which may

confirm its positing and determine it more closely. In apprehending the world, we regard

this horizon directly. Thus, as Husserl writes,

Things, objects are "given" as presently obtaining (geltende) for us (in some sort of mode
of ontological certainty), but in principle only in such a way that we are conscious of
 Notes
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them as things, as objects within the world-horizon. Each is something, "something
from" the world which is apprehended by us continually as a horizon. ... Every plural
and every singular taken from it presupposes the world-horizon. This difference between
the mode of being (Seinsweise) of an object within the world and that of the world itself
obviously prescribes a basically different mode of conciousness relative to each" (Ibid.,
last italics added).

According to the above, the world is regarded "continually as a horizon." This is

its mode of presence as a world. Now if, in the natural attitude, we assert that the things

of the world are "truly existing," we can see how this necessitates the infinite extension

of the world-horizon. From the phenomenological perspective, to regard the thing as

truly existing is to regard it as an infinite, Kantian idea. It is to conceive of it in terms of

an infinite continuum of experiences which supposedly determine it "more closely and

never otherwise." The thing, then, is "something from" the world, regarded as an

indefinitely extendable horizon, precisely because its own thesis demands the indefinite

extension of its own internal and external horizons. In other words, it is "of" the world in

the sense of its requiring the world as an unending horizon of possible experiences.

If we ask why we must regard the world as a horizon, indeed, as a final horizon

embracing every possible ordering of experience, we come to the natural attitude's

assertion of the world's unique singularity. The attitude assumes that only individual

existents count as being; it insists that the world is not existent as a horizon, but only as

the collection of such individuals. But this is incompatible with the thesis of the world's

unique singularity. As we saw, individual entities cannot be directly grasped as forming

an all-embracing totality, a totality that has no beyond. They form collections, pluralities

of beings, to which further members can always be added. To engage, then, in the thesis

of the world's unique singularity, we must reverse the usual sense -- the natural attitude's

sense -- of our Seinsrede. The being which is first, in the sense of being that from which
 Notes
188

all others are, is not the world understood as a collection of entities. It is the world taken

as a final horizon, i.e., as an all-embracing totality of experiences, experiences which,

themselves, must be taken as pre-individual and pre-objective. In other words, to regard

the world as uniquely singular, we must regard it in terms of the experiences which we

described as having the "one-in-many" type of being. This is a being which is not

multiplied by the various experiential contexts which these experiences can form through

their connections. Only through such a regard, can we grasp them as forming a unique

totality, one which is not capable of being enriched by the addition of individual

instances. Granting that the absolute is this collection of pre-individual experiences, we

have Husserl's conclusion. The thesis of the world as a unique singular has been

transformed into a corresponding thesis concerning the absolute as a final horizon. With

this, the thought of the thing as "something from" a uniquely singular world is itself

transformed. It becomes the thought of its horizon terminating in the final horizon.

Implicit in the above is a new way of understanding the assertion that

consciousness, considered as absolute, does not acknowledge a "beyond" or an "outside."

It is not just that the experiences of consciousness are prior to the constitution of the

spatial distinction, "within" and "without." They are prior to every distinction which

implies a "beyond." As a possibility which embraces all possibilities, as a final horizon

which implies all particular experiential horizons, an absolute consciousness cannot have

anything beyond itself. It is, itself, that totality which the natural attitude assumes the

world to be; and this, in a far deeper sense, insofar as it grounds all possible worlds and

non-worlds. We can, thus, say: nothing, be it contingent or essentially necessary, is

foreign to the absolute. This follows since the absolute is the ground of all

contingencies, all "facts," as well as being the ground of all essential necessities. It

grounds the latter insofar as it can, through its connections, result in a positable and,

hence, in a "rational" world with its particular essential necessities. It is what gives such
 Notes
189

necessities a real significance or applicability. But, as a ground of such, it is

undetermined by them. In Husserl's words, "Its necessity is not an essential necessity ...

All essential necessities are moments of its fact (Factums)" (Ms. E III 9, HA XV, Kern

ed., p. 386, Nov. 5, 1931). The same sort of argument has been made about individual,

worldly "facts." The absolute is the ground of such facts in their character of things

which "could have been otherwise"; but as their ground, it is distinguished from them. It

is not really a fact even though Husserl writes: "The absolute which we uncover is

absolute 'fact' ('Tatsache')." Thus, he corrects the usage of this and similar statements by

writing, "Absolute 'fact'" -- the word, 'fact' (Factum), is, according to its sense,

improperly applied here; so also the word, "Tatsache," [literally: thing-done]. There is

no doer (Täter) here. There is only the absolute which also cannot be described as

[essentially] 'necessary.' The absolute lies at the basis of all possibilities, all relativities,

all limitations, giving them their sense and being" (Ms. C I, Sept. 21-22, 1934, HA XV,

Kern ed., pp. 669-70). Such possibilities, relativities, limitations are not "beyond" the

absolute insofar as it lies at their basis, i.e., stands as their unconditioned ground.

Precisely as such, however, it escapes these characterizations which are appropriate only

to the beings and relations which it, itself, grounds.

B. The absolute in relation to the individual consciousness

Let us turn now to an examination of the absolute in its relation to individuals.

Since this relation is that of a ground, the examination necessarily concerns its process of

grounding individuals. In the Krisis, Husserl's favorite terms for describing this process

are "self-externalization" and "self-objectification." Using the metaphors of "inner" and

"outer," he writes for example:

We shall learn to understand that the world, which continually exists for us in the
flowing change of modes of givenness, is a universal spiritual (geistige) acquisition. It
 Notes
190
has developed as such and it also continues to develop as the unity of a spiritual form, as
a product of sense, as a product of a universal, ultimately functioning subjectivity. It
belongs essentially to its world constituting accomplishment that subjectivity objectifies
itself as human subjectivity, as an element within the world. All objective consideration
of the world is a consideration of the "outer" (im "Aussen") and grasps only what is outer
(Aeusserlichkeiten), i.e., objectivities. The radical consideration of the world is the
systematic and pure inner consideration of the subjectivity which "externalizes" [or
"expresses"] itself in the outer (der sich selbst im Aussen "äussernden" Subjectivitaet).
Krisis, 2nd Biemel ed., pp. 115-16.

The same sort of language is used in raising the question of the reduction to the absolute.

Here, too, the absolute is viewed as the "ultimate" subjectivity which undergoes a "self-

objectification" resulting in "humanity." As Husserl phrases this question, it is: "How

can it be made more concretely intelligible that the reduction of humanity to the

phenomenon, 'humanity,' which is included in the reduction of the world, allows this

humanity to be recognized as the self-objectification of transcendental subjectivity, the

subjectivity which ultimately functions at all times and is, therefore, absolute?" (Ibid.,

pp. 155-56).

The problem Husserl is raising with his question concerns both the world and the

individual subjects located in it. If, as the natural or ("life-world") attitude believes, the

world is the totality of all that there is, the reduction cannot find fitting terms for a proper

self-description. Conceived as an abstraction of consciousness from the world, it leaves

us with nothing at all. This holds when we take our world-presentation

(Weltvorstellung) as the totality of our presentations of what is. 4 It also holds if, with

the natural attitude, we take the world as the totality of all that is. In the former case, our

abstraction empties our consciousness, qua intentional consciousness, of what is. In the

latter case, our abstraction of consciousness from the world is its separation from all that

is, including its own being! Furthermore, if, as this attitude believes, "To live in the
 Notes
191

world is always to live in the certainty of the world," then an abstraction from the world

is an abstraction from all the certainty that life affords (Krisis, 2nd Biemel ed., p. 145).

In other words, the actual practice of the reduction appears impossible as a natural, life-

world activity. The individual subject, conceived as part of the world, cannot be

separated from it without losing all being and certainly concerning being. The

conclusion here is that either the reduction is not performable or, if it is, it cannot be

described in terms of the natural, life-world attitude which it is attempting to overturn.

Thus, when Husserl asks about the subjective "life" which we live in the life-world:

How and in what manner can it be uncovered, how can it be shown as a self-enclosed
universe for its own theoretical and consistently maintained inquiry, how can it be shown
disclosing itself as an ultimately functioning, accomplishing subjectivity, the subjectivity
which is responsible for the being of the world, the world for us as our natural life
horizon? (Ibid., p. 149),

his answer is that it cannot be studied in the attitude of the life-world. In Husserl's

words, "The life that accomplishes the world-validity of natural world-life does not

permit of being studied in the attitude of natural world-life" (Ibid., p. 151). Such an

attitude makes the reduction incomprehensible. But the reduction is precisely what

makes the proposed study of this accomplishing life phenomenologically possible. What

we require, then, is a "transcendental phenomenological epoché as a total transformation

of the attitude of natural life" (Ibid.). We must suspend this attitude's view of the world

-- which includes the notion of ourselves as individuals within the world's totality -- to be

able to practice and understand the reduction.

The above gives the context for yet another passage from the Krisis where

Husserl speaks of humanity (or "human subjectivity") as the self-objectification of the

absolute subjectivity. He writes:

 Notes
192

The ground had become evident to us. The problem of the fundamental validity of the
world as a world, the world which is what it is through actual and possible cognition,
through actual and possible functioning subjectivity, had pe se announced itself. But
powerful difficulties had to be overcome in order not just to begin the method of the
epoché and the reduction, but also to bring them to a full self-comprehension and, with
this, to discover, first of all, the absolutely functioning subjectivity, discover it not as
human, but as that which objectifies itself in human subjectivity or, [at least] at first in
human subjectivity (Krisis, Biemel ed., p. 265).

The claim of this passage, which is a claim implied in our previous quotations, is that the

reduction cannot be understood as a reduction to a finite, individually existing subject. If

we take it as an abstraction of a finite subject from the world, which is understood as the

totality of finite beings, it levaves us, as we said, with nothing at all. Considered as a

reducing of the world to such a subject, it leaves us with a skeptical solipsism. The latter

follows because the reduction, so taken, becomes understood as a reduction of the whole

to a part, i.e., a limitation of the world to one of its components. At this point, the

"residuum" which remains is only the private or "merely personal" experiences of an

individual. This alone is "proper" to the subject if we understand him as a mere part of

the whole. It goes without saying that such a subject can never be a ground of the being

of the world or its "fundamental validity." Qua individual, the subject is one among

many and, hence, is not in a position to be the unique ground of many individuals. It can

only be an individual or private ground of what it constitutes in its private acts. It, thus,

can only constitute a world "for itself" -- not an objective or true world (a "universally

valid" world for many individual subjects).

The inference here is readily apparent. The reduction's possibility of reaching a

non-solipsistic ground of the world is its possibility of proceeding beyond the individual.

The reduction is neither the abstraction of a finite consciousness from the world nor a
 Notes
193

reducing of the world's totality to this finite consciousness. It is rather the attempt to

reach a consciousness to which we can transfer the quality of the world as a totality of

beings and regions of beings. Only a reduction to such an all-embracing consciousness

would allow to assert with Husserl: "We have actually lost nothing [through the

reduction], but have won the totality of absolute being which, properly understood,

contains in itself all worldly transcendencies ... 'constituting' them in itself" (Ideen I,

Biemel ed., p. 119). For Husserl, such a consciousness is "the domain of experiences qua

absolute essentialities (Wesenheiten). He writes: "It is, in itself, fixedly self-contained

and yet without the boundaries which would separate it from other regions. ... it is the

totality of absolute being in the definite sense which our analyses have allowed to come

forward" (Ibid., p. 121). This sense is not that of an individual consciousness -- a one

among many. It is rather that of the domain of separately regarded experiences which

stand as unique singulars with regard to the individuals they constitute. We can, thus,

say that they are called "absolute essentialities" because they function as one in many;

they are elements which, in their own being, are not meaningfully multipliable by the

multitude of transcendencies which they can constitute. As our last section showed, only

such a "domain of experiences qua absolute essentialities" can have the unique

singularity which the natural attitude attempts to ascribe to the world. Thus, the

reduction of the world in its singularity can only be to consciousness conceived as this

domain. But at this point, it is not a reduction but rather a transfer of the quality of

unique singularity to its legitimate possessor.

The same point can be made by noting that "the fundamental validity

(Bodengeltung) of the world as world" springs from the assumption that the world is "the

totality of things." It is as such a totality that it is assumed to provide all the evidence

which could validate any particular proposition. It is because of this that it is assumed to

be a ground (Boden) of all validity. Now, the transfer of this quality to consciousness
 Notes
194

arises by virtue of two insights. The first is that it is experience that validates. The

second is that the totality of things, i.e., the world, can only be apprehended as a horizon.

This horizon, taken as the horizon of horizons, is that of experiences considered as

"absolute essentialities." It is from these, in their various possible connections, that all

validity (or obtaining) arises. The world's quality of being the ground (or root) of

validity is, thus, properly assumed by consciousness understood as the field of "pure," or

essentially regarded experiences. This cannot be otherwise, since it itself is the graspable

totality which the world claims to be when it claims to be the ground of all possible

validity.

The results of this analysis may be expressed in terms of a metaphor. The

separately regarded elements which form the domain of the absolute consciousness can

be considered as an alphabet of pure experiences. What is "written" with this alphabet is

the presently existing world of individual existents. The "writing" of the world is the

insertion into time of the letters of this alphabet. More precisely put, it is the connection

of such experiences through their being ordered according to definite temporal locations.

It is this which results in the self-objectification (or externalization) of the absolute.

Abstracting as we have done from the question of time, the nature of this temporal

ordering cannot be considered here. It will find its place as the subject of a following

chapter. As we shall see, this examination will require the performance of a reduction

which is parallel and yet distinct from the reduction we have just described (See below,

).

Our present description is, however, sufficient to give a first answer to the

question which naturally arises when we read Husserl's remarks about the subjectivity

that functions "ultimately," "always" and "everywhere." If we are its "self

externalization," is such subjectivity one or many? Fink formulates this question in a

number of ways. He notes that "the title, 'world,' does not apply to a, so to speak, private
 Notes
195

(primordial) constitutive product of an individual transcendental ego." It is rather a

correlate of the "communalization of the constitutive life-processes which are realized by

the transcendental community of monads." He then asks "whether, with the analytical

exhibition of the transcendental monadic intersubjectivity, constitutive life is already

ultimately determined ...?" ("Proposal," ed. cit., p. 175; F. 176). The question, in other

words, is "whether the transcendental individuation of the plurality of monads is a final

determination of constituting life, one not capable of being annulled by the reduction ...?"

Given that the reduction is supposed to reach the absolute, this is also the question of

"whether the absolute itself is divided into a plurality of members and [hence] subjected

to individuation -- or whether all divisions into pluralities of members are only self-

articulations present in the absolute which itself can finally only be thought under the

idea of the 'one'?" (Ibid., p. 176; F. 177). The same question, formulated in terms of the

individuality of the subject, is, according to Fink: "whether the individuation of the

transcendental ego (as an individual monad in the monadic intersubjectivity) is not a

level of the self-objectification of a unitary (ein-haften) transcendental life which is

positioned before all individuation ...?" (Ibid., p. 180; F. 182-3). The answer to these

questions should be clear. Insofar as we maintain that all individual being is constituted

being (or dependent on such constitution), the unconditioned absolute cannot be

characterized by (or "subjected to") the thesis of individuation. The thesis of individual

being is based on the connections of experience. It, thus, cannot apply to the

unconditioned, unconnected domain of the absolute.5

Granting this, we can pose with Paul Rocoeur a further question. It is: "In what

sense and at what level ... is subjectivity still a plurality of consciousnesses, an

intersubjectivity?" (Husserl: An Analysis ..., ed. cit., p. 28). The elements which

provide an answer to this question have already been given by us. They may be put in

terms of three theses. The first is that the ultimate subjectivity is not an experiencing
 Notes
196

subjectivity. As we quoted Husserl, "... there is no actor (Täter) here. There is just the

absolute ..." (Ms. C I, Sept. 21-22, 1934, HA XV, Kern ed., p. 669). In itself, the

absolute is the possibility of all experiential possibilities; it is the horizon of all possible

experiential horizons. As such, it is prior to the intentional acts or cogitationes which are

formed from the definite connections of experience. The absolute, we can say, grounds

the personally experiencing ego -- the ego of acts -- but is, as a ground, distinct from this

latter. Thus, the connections which make possible an individual experiencer are only one

of the possibilities contained in the domain of the pre-individual experiences making up

the absolute. Our second thesis follows from this when we take this domain as a flowing

stream: Granting that the ego of acts is itself constituted, the constitution of the world

from the stream of experiences does not require an individual agent exterior to the

stream. For Husserl, both the acting ego and its surrounding world, which appears

through its acts, are passively constituted by the stream in its factually given relations.

The dependence of both on the facticity of the stream is one that concerns their being as

individual, connected unities. It is, thus, a dependence which equally applies to a

plurality of individuals -- i.e., to an intersubjectivity formed by a plurality of acting

subjects. As Husserl expresses this: "If, proceeding systematically, we display from the

bottom up the transcendental constitution of the pre-given world, it is then to be

observed: We naturally presuppose the fact of the actual content [of experience] in its

streaming components with respect to the essential form [of the pre-given world]. This

holds just as obviously for the 'absolute,' transcendental intersubjectivity per se" (Ms. E

III 9, ca. Nov. 13, 1931, HA XV, Kern ed., p. 403). This passage concludes with the

remark we have already quoted. The absolute which is genuinely independent is not such

a plurality of individual subjects -- i.e., an intersubjectivity. Rather, "The absolute which

we uncover is absolute 'fact'."

 Notes
197

Before we consider our third thesis, let us note certain items with regard to this

"fact." It is, first of all, a non-contingent fact. Furthermore, it is not an individual

egological fact. The latter follows when we regard it on the level of our "alphabet" of

experience -- i.e., as a horizon of horizons from which all temporal relations have been

abstracted in thought. It also holds when we consider it, as the above passage does, as

the "actual content [of experience] in its streaming components." As Husserl writes:

"The structural analysis of the original present (the lasting-living streaming) leads us to

the structure of the ego and to the underlying levels of egoless streaming which

constantly found it. It leads back to the radically pre-egological through a consequent

inquiry back to that which makes possible sedimented activity and to that which such

activity presupposes" (Ms. E III 9, Sept. 1933, HA XV, Kern ed., p. 598). These

underlying levels which "found" the sedimented structure of the personal or habitual ego

are prior to what they found in their factual course. They cannot be regarded as

springing from an egological source. Husserl, thus, asserts: "The primally streaming and

primally constituted non-ego is the hyletic universe [of actual experiential contents]

which, in itself, is constituting and which already has constantly constituted; it is a

temporalizing-temporal primal occurring (Urgeschehen) which does not occur from

egological sources (aus Quellen des Ich); it, therefore, occurs without the participation of

the ego" (Ms. C 10, p. 25, 1931). This dependence of the egological on the factual

givenness of the non-egological involves each and every ego.

Our last item, then, is that insofar as such dependence on the factual results in the

contingency of the individual, it also results in a similar contingency of the

intersubjective community made up of a plurality of individuals. Husserl expresses this

in terms of his doctrine that "a complete dissolution of the world in a tumult of

experiences is equivalent to a dissolution of the ego ..." He asks, "What would an ego be

which has no nature facing itself, ... which, instead of this, would be given a mere tumult
 Notes
198

of experiences?" He observes that in such a case there would be no Others for me.

There could not be since I would no longer exist. As he puts this in a pair of rhetorical

questions: "And could such an ego have other egos alongside of itself, indeed, is a

plurality of egos thinkable here? Would not the recognizing ego, for whom this plurality

is supposed to be exhibitable, itself be unthinkable?" (Ms. K IV 2, pp. 14-15, 1925). The

same point holds for Others considered as egos like myself. Insofar as they are

understood not just as objects for me, but as subjects like myself, they are, as I am,

dependent on the pre-egological levels which found the ego. Their being as real,

personal and pure egos is contingent on the factual givenness of the "hyle" not being that

of a tumult. Such a tumult would make impossible the ordered unity of experience

known as the cogito. It would also rule out any notion of the pure ego as a center or pole

of intentionally ordered (connected) experiences.

With this, we can give our third thesis: The ego, which appears as a personal and

pure experiencer of the world, appears only when the experiential stream -- Husserl's

"hyletic universe" -- is differentiated into experiences of a surrounding world. This is a

world of experiences which, through its connections, allows of a distinct point of view.

It, thus, can be characterized as a world of perspectivally appearing objects, objects

among which a subject is situated at a definite distance in a definite time. In a general

sense, it is a world whose experiential horizons have been so structured as to place the

subject in their center. It is, we asserted, from the vantage point of the here and the now,

i.e., from the point of the spatial and temporal center of his experiential horizons, that the

pure subject first can appear as an experiencer (See above, ). This can also be put in

terms of Husserl's double assertion, namely: 1) "The pure ego is, we expressly stress, a

numerical singular with respect to 'its' stream of consciousness" and 2) "... every pure ego

has ... the human ego has personhood (persönlichkeit) as its surrounding object (Ideen II,

Biemel ed., p. 110). The individualization of the stream into one's own stream is its
 Notes
199

arrangement so as to form a distinct point of view, a 0-point or center in space and time.

Simultaneously, it is the connection of experiences so as to constitute the ongoing

cogitationes and, with this, the personal ego of acts. In other words, it is the constitution

of the acts which present one with one's own surrounding world -- i.e., the world in

which one is positioned as a center and in terms of which one can interpret oneself as

"real." As we observed in our last chapter, the pure ego, although not itself constituted,

can only appear when the conditions obtain for the presentation to it of its surrounding

world. Thus, the answer to Ricoeur's question is that subjectivity is a plurality of

subjects at the level where the conditions for this plurality obtain. At the constitutive

level where the conditions do not yet obtain -- Husserl's "radically pre-egological" level

-- subjectivity is not yet a plurality. At this level, however, it is also not yet an

experiencing subjectivity. Here, of course, we take an experiencing subjectivity as that

which possesses a distinct point of view.

§4. The Hiddenness of the Absolute.

A. The self-concealment of the absolute in the individual

For Husserl the self-objectification of the absolute is necessarily its self-

concealment. The individual subjects in which it has objectified itself express particular

points of view. They are tied to the finite surrounding worlds which define them. They

are, thus, led to interpret themselves in finite worldly terms. They understand themselves

as individual beings among the beings of the given world. This self-interpretation is both

correct and incorrect. It is correct insofar as it concerns their objectified status. It is

incorrect insofar as it fails to note the ground of this status. With regard to its

correctness, Husserl writes: "It is inconceiveable that, in reflection, I do not discover

myself as experiencing a world in my experiences ..." (Ms. C 7 II, p. 19, ca. June 15,
 Notes
200

1932). This inconceivability comes from the fact that the world is my defining condition

as an individual experiencer. My "self-preservation" as a pure and personal ego is, as we

noted, tied to the preservation of my surrounding world. Given this, "there is always the

real world; every ego must construct it (aufbauen) and itself ..." (Ms. C 17 V, p. 24,

1932, italics added). Without it, the ego could not preserve its individual being. In other

words, the fact of its being an individual involves necessarily the fact of the world as the

object of its constitutive cogitationes. As Husserl writes, describing this "must":

"Transcendental subjectivity is not free in its possibilities of constituting beings or non-

beings. It must constitute beings. What sort of 'must' is this? The fact of this world, the

fact of this I (ego), this cogito and the fact of this stream, the stream of historicity

(Geschichtlichkeit) which is this ego and from which it came to be and is becoming"

(Ms. K III 1, viii, pp. 4-5, 1935). The "must," then, springs from the fact of the

constitution of the ego and its defining world through the "historicity" or occurring of the

stream. The presence of the ego as a being signifies that the stream is constitutive of

beings. On the objective level the ego is, thus, perfectly justified in interpreting itself as

a being among the beings of the world. Furthermore, since the givenness of the world in

such constitution is itself a condition of the ego's individuality, the world along with its

"Others" is not something given to it as if the ego could exist apart from the world. The

world is rather always something already there -- i.e., something pre-given to it. This

signifies, in Husserl's words: "I have 'the' world pre-given [to me], pre-given in my

intentional life. There pertains to this pre-givenness, i.e., to the pre-given sense of this

world, that fellow human beings belong to it, to my world, that I myself am objectively

real within it as a human being" (Ms. C 11 I, p. 19, 1933).

As justified as this view may be, it is a concealment of the absolute -- i.e., the

egoless streaming -- which objectifies itself in the individual subject. Husserl describes

the nature of this concealment in a number of ways. Speaking of the absolute's "self-
 Notes
201

objectification as human personality, as humanity," he notes that this necessarily "takes

place in each transcendental monad in an oriented manner, in each in the form of an

individual development from birth to death ..." (Ms. A V 10, p. 20, Nov. 9, 1931). The

individual subject has, in other words, a defined "lifetime." It is a period of time between

birth and death which locates the individual within the natural succession of generations

(See Ms. K III 12, p. 38, 1935). As such, the ego's life is conceived as a mere section of

world-time. Now, what the individual in his self-interpretation fails to realize is that this

finite lifetime is a constituted rather than an unconditioned necessity. Its presence

depends upon the prior constitution of objective, worldly time. It further requires that

subjects be constituted as incarnate, i.e., as possessing bodies which are subject to birth,

growth and decay. For Husserl, this means: "Death pertains to the duration (Bestand) of

the pre-given constituted world" (Ms. A VI 14, p. 3, 1930). In other words, as a

phenomenon that is contingent on subjectivity's objectification as human, "death ... is an

event in the world of humans, in the constituted world" (Ms. A V 20, pp. 23-24, Nov. 18,

1934). This does not make death (or birth) any less of a human necessity. But it does

point out the fact that "the difference between [a] lifetime and world-time is egologically

constituted, the first a mere section of the second" (Ms. C 8 I, p. 16, Oct. 1929). As

constituted, a finite lifetime cannot pertain to the constituting level, the level at which the

absolute functions. Here, in fact, Husserl speaks of the absolute as "preserving" itself,

qua egological constitution, in its objective "modes," the latter being the constituting

lives of individual subjects. The notion is one of the "universal self-preservation of the

absolute in [its] lasting and remaining constitution, renewing itself in each individual

person (from birth onwards) as an invariant self-constitution ..." (Ms. C 17 V, pp. 22-23,

1931). As Husserl also expresses this, we have the thought of "the absolute persisting in

eternity in the eternal changes of its modes, at first through ordinary birth and death, but

also through the birth and death of humanities, etc." (Ibid., p. 47).
 Notes
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These statements point out the fact that a finite lifetime, which is a necessary

result of the absolute's constitution of finite, contingent beings, is also a necessary

concealment of itself in its pre-objective, unlimited character. With regard to the latter, it

must be observed that the notion of the absolute as persisting and preserving itself

through individual lives should not be taken as implying that the absolute is, itself,

contingent on the presence of such lives. As already indicated, the absolute per se is not

an experiencing, egological subject. Its unconditioned, "ground-less" character rules out

every dependence, including that on individual lives. For Husserl, then, "the

transcendental totality of subjects is contingent ...," not the absolute ground of such a

totality (Ms. K III 12, p. 39, 1935). This, at least follows once we take the absolute in its

character as streaming field of experiences whose elements form the alphabet for

whatever may be constituted.6

We observed above that the constitution of a finite lifetime requires the

constitution of organic bodies capable of birth and death. Actually, the constitution of

the sense of my own birth and death proceeds through the apprehension of these

phenomena as pertaining, first of all, not to myself, but to Others in their embodied

character. Despite its mediated quality, this constitution does require that I possess, like

my Others, an organic body; and this brings us to a further aspect of the self-concealment

of the absolute. It concerns the individual's self-interpretation as a besouled body. In

Husserl's words: "The individual, human self-objectification in each monad is a

transcendental self-concealment. This occurs in the form of [its] spatial-temporal

objectification as the 'soul' of its natural body and as a soul which, in its psychologized

(psychologisierten) being for itself, conceals in a certain way even its mental

(psychisches) being: its being as a person who, for himself, is known-unknown or

known in terms of a horizon, a person of a mental life which brings both nature and

world to appearance in concealed ontical and noetic horizons" (Ms. A V 10, pp. 20-21,
 Notes
203

Nov. 9, 1931). The reference to the "psychologized" being of the soul most probably

concerns to the psychologism which Husserl combatted in the Logical Investigations.

According to its arguments, the soul itself is a real, worldly being. Like other such

beings, it is subject to the laws of material causality. Its quality of being intentionally

related to the world -- i.e., of intentionally bringing it to appearance -- is, thus, concealed

through an interpretation which sees it exclusively in terms of the causal, spatial-

temporal relations appropriate to natural bodies.

Husserl's mention of the soul's knowing both itself and its world in terms of

horizons brings to the fore yet another aspect of the concealment of its ground. As a

finite expression of the absolute, the individual's access to both time and space is finite.

His lifetime is limited, is only a "section" of world time. Because he lacks the time to

explore, his access to the world's spatial dimension is also limited. In Husserl's words, he

"lives ... in a 'finitude' in which the 'infinitude' of being is concealed" (Ms. A V 10, p. 21,

Nov. 9, 1931). Another way of putting this is to say that he lives in a world which has

the quality of being both known and unknown. He experiences it as a horizon with a

central, familiar core surrounded by undefined areas which he has not yet explored.

Now, as Husserl observes, this conception of "the finitude of the surrounding world," of

the world's being actually explored only in part, is correlated to its sense as presumptive.

The finitude of my access to it prevents me from obtaining the continuum of experiences

which would establish the theses of its beings. Here, of course, "finitude" has a special

phenomenological sense. In Husserl's words: "The finitude of the surrounding world,

from the point of view of pure experience, does not signify an abstract limitation

(determination and negation) of the cosmic infinitude ... Rather infinitude is already

present in each individual reality of the surrounding world [when taken] as an intentional

unity with an open horizon. In this open horizon, there is already present, in a certain

sense, the ideal infinity ..." (Ms. A VII 21, p. 8, June 10, 1933). This "ideal infinity"
 Notes
204

refers to the infinitude of experiences required to establish the entity's "being in itself."

Given that the thesis of such being is actually that of a Kantian idea, the horizon of

experiences which is required to establish it always surpasses the experiences actually

available to me (See Ms. B III 7, p. 7, 1933). The same point holds, a fortiori, for the

world as a whole. Even if I were to assert that the realities of my finite surrounding

world are actually existent "in themselves," it would still be the case that "the existence

of the cosmos would lie under a presupposition," namely that of the "possibility of [my]

being able to continually experience ad infinitum" (Ms. A VII 21, p. 8).

We remarked above that the non-contingency of the absolute as a final horizon

was tied in Husserl's thought to the contingency of the world which the absolute grounds.

We can now put this point in terms of the self-concealment of the absolute. The horizon

of the absolute is all embracing. As such it excludes the notion of contingency. The

horizon of the world which the individual subject actually experiences is finite. It is

something which the subject can only piecemeal experience and make actual to itself.

The second horizon thus acts to conceal the first. This concealment is simply a function

of the self-objectification of the absolute in terms of finite experiencers, each with a

finite access to the world. Each is finite by virtue of being spatially embodied and,

correspondingly, by virtue of possessing a finite, temporally limited lifetime. By virtue

of such finitude, each must experience the world, and himself within it, as a mixture of

the known and the unknown -- i.e., in terms of the second, finitely experiencible horizon.

By virtue of this last, each must regard the world -- the totality of beings and subjects,

including himself -- under the aspect of contingency. Taking the totality of the world as

the ultimate self-expression (or objectification) of the absolute, there is, then, a double

concealment: The absolute's characteristics of all-inclusiveness and non-contingency are

hidden by the partiality and contingency -- the presumptiveness -- inherent in our

experience of the world-totality.

 Notes
205

This stress on hiddenness and concealment may be seen as Husserl's rendition of

the Heideggarian themes of the "thrownness" and "finitude" of human experience. For

Husserl, the individual is thrown into the world since it is "there" before him, pre-given

as his condition. He is not free in its constitution; the ego must necessarily "construct it

and himself." Such construction, however, proceeds under the conditions of finitude.

All of the finite subject's experiential acquisitions are regarded as contingent and relative.

None of them has the stamp of permanence. This living "horizonally" -- i.e., living "in

the consciousness of finitude in an infinite world" -- is, for Husserl, the basic "structure

of human existence" (Ms. A V 10, p. 22, Nov. 9, 1931). He thus writes:

... living as a human being, I am conscious of myself as a finite creature in the infinity of
the spatial-temporal world. This world, however -- this infinity, which is known in the
manner of a horizon and which, in all living access to the horizon, remains ad infinitum
in its horizonality -- is constantly concealed even in [its] constant disclosure. And
everything is concealed, even the quite well known, even one's own human being
(Menschsein), one's own bodilyness, one's own being as an ego; they are always in
finitude, in the relativity of obviousness and hiddenness, and this according to each and
every [feature]. This is the structure of human existence (Dasein als Mensch), of the
existence of the world for it; and there also corresponds to this, in a worldly sense, the
structure of the soul's world-consciousness; there corresponds the structure of each
possible world-conception as something finite in a horizon of infinite cognitions, as
something which exists in a relativity in which no cognition is final" (Ibid., p. 21).

These remarks may be compared to Heidegger's when the latter asserts that "being," as

revealed by Dasein, "is essentially finite" ("Was ist Metaphysik?", Wegmarken, Frankfurt

am Main, 1967, p. 17).

B. The self-concealment of the absolute in Others

As Husserl constantly asserts, the "pre-givenness of the world" does not just

involve my own presence as "objectively real within it," but also that of Others, of fellow
 Notes
206

human beings belonging to it (See, e.g., Ms. C 17 II, p. 5, ca. Jan. 1, 1931). This pre-

givenness of Others as independent subjects "in and for themselves" is, as we shall see, a

further aspect of the concealment of the absolute.

For the natural attitude, the presence of Others is taken as a simple given of

experience. Others, from our earliest experience, are given as parents, relations, siblings,

etc. The presence of one generation is seen as biologically necessary for the next. What

of the epistemological necessity for the presence of Others? Activities, such as teaching

and learning, do require Others; though, this, of course, presupposes that we all share a

common world. In expressing this presupposition, the natural attitude formulates it in

terms of its fundamental proposition that every reality is a being in itself. To be such is

to be objectively real; but this is also to be real for everyone. It, thus, adopts the Kantian

equation of objective and universal validity (validity for everyone). As Husserl puts this:

"The world in the natural attitude is experienced with the sense: the world for everyone,

the world which, therefore, everyone can experience and think of as the same and which

everyone must insightfully determine as the same when they do experience it with

insight. Correlatively, it is a world in itself. It is, namely, an open, infinite universe of

individual realities, of each of the beings of itself" (Ms. K III 12, p. 36, 1935). Here, the

necessity of Others is simply that of a correlate of the in-itselfness of worldly being.

When we first take up the transcendental attitude, the necessity for Others is

considered along similar lines. It is thought in terms of the equivalence of being and

being given. The being of the world in its infinite extent seems to involve the necessary

presence of an indefinitely extended plurality of subjects to whom it can be given.

Husserl expresses this in a number of ways. What is common to them all is the

dialectic of finitude and infinitude which characterizes human existence in its horizonal

structure. We have, first of all, the dialectic of the finitude of my lifetime vis-a-vis the

infinitude of world-time. As Husserl writes: "My life becomes a human life in the
 Notes
207

world ... My life in its open infinitude is, indeed, finite in and according to objective

spatial-temporality. It will cease as a human life in the world; I shall die." (Ms. C 8 I, p.

22, Oct. 1929). Granting this, the question is: What is the relation of my worldly

finitude to the world's infinitude? Husserl's answer to this is twofold. On the one hand,

he points out that the sense of my finitude, i.e., of my lifetime as bounded by birth and

death, requires the apprehension of Others for its constitution. He asserts, on the other

hand, that the constitutive sense I do have of Others and, corresponding to this, my sense

of an infinitude of possible experiences, has its motivating, phenomenological basis in

the sense of my own finitude. Self and Others, finitude and infinitude, are, in other

words, correlative concepts. They are concepts which are involved in a dialectic where

each demands the other for its basis.

Thus, with regard to my sense of birth and death, Husserl notes that these are not

personally experiencible phenomena. This follows analytically from their worldly

notions as beginnings and ends of experience. To experience a beginning of experience

as a beginning, one would have to experience what went before it. But before such a

beginning, there is, by definition, no such experience available to me. The same holds,

mutatis mutandis, for the case of death. The underlying point here is that "life and death

are in objective time and limit the temporal existence of every human being, i.e., limit its

human duration which, like every objective duration, has its relations of coexistence,

overlapping, length and shortness, etc." (Ms. C 8 I, p. 23, Oct. 1929). In such objective

time, to experience the beginning or the end of something is always to experience its

before and after. In terms of organic life, it is to experience the birth of a living body by

having an experience of what preceded it. Similarly, it is to experience this body's death

by being aware of that which follows its organic cessation. Given that organic birth and

death have the worldly sense of the beginnings and ends of objective experience, they

cannot be personally experienced. Their worldly sense can only be given in a mediated
 Notes
208

fashion. This sense can be constituted only by my drawing an analogy between the

organic birth and death of Others and the fact that I myself am an embodied subject. The

conclusion, here, as Husserl expresses it, is that "my death as a worldly phenomenon can

only be constituted for me when I experience the death of Others ... The death of Others

is the death that is constituted prior to this. Just so in the case of the birth of Others " (A

VI 14, p. 3, 1930). Since birth and death do bound my lifetime, my sense that I have a

finite lifetime must also be constituted. In other words, it is through my experience of

Others that I have "the constituted difference between a lifetime and world-time, the first

a mere section from the second" (Ms. C 8 I, p. 18, Oct. 1929). From this, my "essential

finitude" is easily derived. Its worldly sense is that of my having a finite access to the

world; but this is inherent in my having a finite lifetime. As Husserl expresses this

conclusion:

My essential finitude shows itself here in the fact that I (and we) can reach in original
experience only a finite part of nature as my natural surrounding world, although this
part is, in its way, an open non-bounded part. If I perform a primordial reduction [i.e., a
reduction to what I can directly or primordially experience], I, thus, get a finite nature or
world. Certainly this finitude is concealed so long as my birth has not been discovered,
so long as I have not brought into play the co-being (Mitsein) of Others (Ms. C 17 II, p.
7, ca. Jan. 1, 1931).

Having asserted that the sense of my finitude requires Others for its apprehension,

we can reverse this proposition. We can say that my sense of Others has its

phenomenological basis in the sense I have of my own finitude. To make this point, we

must first observe that my finitude implies my living in the world as a finitely accessible

horizon. As we just quoted Husserl, my finitude shows itself in the fact that I can

directly experience "only a finite part of nature." This part is recognized as such because
 Notes
209

it is seen as included in a greater whole -- i.e., that of the world which surpasses each of

its parts. Now, to live in the world as a finitely accessible horizon is precisely to

experience it in this part-whole relation. It is to recognize one's experience as only a part

of what would be available if one's lifetime were extended. Here, the familiar core of the

subject's "surrounding world" is always bordered by the progressively less well known.

Husserl puts this in terms of the "if-then" quality of subjective experience. He writes:

Everything, both the consciousness of being and the assertion of being, rests on
presumptive certainties in relation to my 'I can' ... If my powers were extended on
and on, then something new and a new 'I can' would enter into the experiences
which spring from the new and then the presumptive certainties would also
disclose themselves according to the style of my experiencing life, the life which
constitutes in experience (Ms. C 8 1, pp. 18-19, Oct. 1929).

This "if ... then" quality signifies my continual sense of the hypothetical character of my

"I can." My "I can," in thought, can always be extended; and, with this, the thought

arises that, were it actually extended, a new "I can" would arise. This very thought is the

mark of my finitude. It springs from my being as a finite experiencer, i.e., as someone

who experiences "only a finite part of nature." Because of this I always experience the

world as a finitely accessible horizon, a horizon which I explore part by part but which

always, as a whole, escapes my grasp.

Once we express our finitude in these terms, it becomes a motivating basis for our

positing of Others. Two elements of this basis are 1) the correlation of the world to my

"I can," and 2) the surpassing quality of the world. Both are involved in my sense that it

is only in relation to my hypothetically extended -- as opposed to my actual -- "I can"

that the world ever achieves any certainty of being. Now, such certainty of being is the

motivating goal of all my positing. This follows once we recall that the unity of my ego
 Notes
210

is correlated to the unity of the world in which I find myself. My ego's active striving for

self-preservation is, when noematically regarded, also a striving for the harmoniousness

of its multiple experiences and position takings. It is a striving towards the

harmoniousness which allows it to posit the world as an existing unity. In Husserl's

words, my "will to live" (Wille zum Leben) is also a "will to true being" -- i.e., the being

of which I can have some certainty (Ms. E III 9, Nov. 5, 1931, HA XV, Kern ed., p.

378). We thus, have, on the one hand "... the ongoing style of an ego which, in the

streaming life of position takings, constantly preserves itself through self-correction."

On the other hand, we have its striving "to bring all its experiential certainties with every

experiential content into a harmonious, universal certainty, albeit through the correction

[of such certainties and content]" (Ibid., p. 404, Nov. 13, 1931). The all-pervasive

quality of this striving towards harmoniousness and, hence, towards the establishment of

being is noted in another manuscript of the same year: "And, indeed, a tendency

(Tendenz) pervades all intentionality, an impulse of striving (Strebenszug) goes through

it. Everything is intentionally one with everything; through harmoniousness in synthesis,

everything contains constituted unity. [Thus,] a tendency towards establishment [of

being qua constituted unity] pervades the whole, a tendency towards the overcoming of

disharmoniousness, towards correction" (Ms. B I 32, p. 13, May or Aug., 1931). Given

this, we can say that the establishment of certainty of being through correction is the

motivating goal of all intentional life; it is what all my attempts at positing are striving to

achieve.

When we put this together with the fact that my primordial certainty of being is

related only to my hypothetically -- as opposed to my actually -- extended "I can," we

have the motivating basis for my positing of Others. By myself, I can have only a

hypothetical certainty of being. The goal of my positing is, however, an actual certainty.

This goal motivates me to posit Others as subjects like myself -- i.e., as possessing the "I
 Notes
211

can," whose actual extension is required for actual certainty. Such positing can, thus, be

looked upon as a transfer to Others of the sense of my "I can" with the result that my

experiential possibilities are indirectly enlarged. As Husserl describes this indirect

extension: "That portion of the world which is immediately experiencible by me is

contained in this spatial-temporal infinity [of the world], but contained within it as a

finitude. It is through Others, namely, and through their experiential data which I 'take

over,' that my at first finite world in space and time, my experiential world, constantly

expands itself" (Ms. C 17 II, pp. 1-2, ca. Jan. 1, 1931). As he also puts this: "The

passive extension of the world ad infinitum is an analogizing, assimilating, transcending

apperception ..." (Ibid., p. 8). It is a result of the analogizing, self-transcending transfer

to Others -- and, mediately, to the Others of these Others -- of my "I can."

The motivation for this transfer can be expressed both on a natural and a

transcendental level. If, in the natural attitude, "to live is always to live in the certainty

of the world," then the very structure of my being in the life-world requires the presence

of Others. This follows because the world appears as the final ground of all my

certainties, but I myself, in my finitude, cannot maintain the thesis of the world -- the

world as the totality of all there is. For this (so I assume) I require Others, fellow

subjects by means of which the world can be extended ad infinitum. The same

motivating necessity occurs on the initial stage of transcendental level. Here, it is

expressed through the notion that being is equivalent to being given. The world is given

to me as surpassing my grasp; to establish its being, I must posit Others as subjects

surpassing me to whom it may be given.

What we are confronted with is a nexus of three interrelated themes: the world's

surpassing quality, my finitude vis-a-vis the world, and my positing of Others as subjects

actually distinct from myself. Quite apart from any question of motivation, we can say

that my positing of such Others would be impossible without my acknowledgement of

 Notes
212

my finitude. This point follows directly from Husserl's analysis of the "analogizing

apperception" by which I posit Others. As we recall, it is based on a double pairing. We

have, first of all, a pairing of my animate body in the here and the there. We then have

the pairing of the Other with myself in the there. It is by virtue of this second pairing

that I posit the Other perceiving "the same nature, but in the mode of appearance: as if I

stood there where the Other's body is" (CM, Strasser ed., p. 152). Now, the first pairing,

as we said, involves possibility -- i.e., my possibility through my "I can" to change my

position, to change a given there into my here. It is, we can say, part of the hypothetical

character of my "I can." In distinction to this, the second pairing involves the actuality of

the Other's being there. He is taken as actually being in the position which I could

hypothetically occupy, were I to change my position (See above, ). With this, the

sense of my own finitude enters to play its indispensable part. As an embodied subject, I

am limited, at any moment, to one definite position. I cannot be in two distinct locations

simultaneously, which means that, outside of the actuality of my present "here," all other

positions are grasped as hypothetical -- i.e., as possible positions which I could have, but

did not realize. Without such finitude, my "I can" would, thus, not have its hypothetical,

"if ... then" character. But without this last, the world would not have its

phenomenological character of always surpassing me. Furthermore, the fact that I cannot

simultaneously be both in the here and the there means, for Husserl, that the Other I do

posit as presently there is actually Other (See above, ). My sense of my embodied

finitude is, thus, an essential element in my apprehension of both the surpassing quality

of the world and the equally surpassing quality of Others as present within this world.

Such Others are posited as subjects directly experiencing those portions of the

world which are outside of my grasp. This is inherent in their surpassing quality being

tied to that of the world. We, thus, come to Husserl's frequent assertion that the

givenness of the world in its surpassing, horizonal quality is, correlatively, the givenness
 Notes
213

of Others. Their givenness, as we quoted Husserl, "pertains ... to the pre-given sense of

this world." This sense is one which I acquire through my horizonal experience of the

world -- i.e., by virtue of the fact that my own givenness as a subject in the world is one

of living "in a 'finitude' in which the infinitude of beings lies concealed" (Ms. A V 10, p.

21, Nov. 9, 1931). Others, then, are implicit in the world as the Others to whom this

infinitude can presumably be given. They are implicit in me insofar as I live in the world

as horizon, i.e., as something explicated by myself and yet as always surpassing my

grasp. Thus, Husserl, in explicating the notion of "living as a human being in the world,"

writes: "The world for me = the world of 'all of us' ('Wir alle'), the 'all' which exists for

me, which is implicit in me" (Ms. D 14, p. 8, March 1931). As he elsewhere puts this:

"My consistent pure self-knowledge as a bearer (Traeger) of the world which exists for

me and is valid for me also conceals in itself a pure knowledge of fellow subjects, fellow

validators-bearers [of the world] ..." (Ms. B I 14, xi, p. 22, Sept. 1935).

On the objective, human level of my finitude, this implication is simply that of

Others being implicit in what we earlier called, the "second, intersubjective sense" of the

world's transcendence (See above, ). On the ultimate level which corresponds to the

absolute, it has quite a different import. Here, the implication of Others as fellow

"bearers" of the surpassing quality of the world shows itself as a transcendental

concealment of the absolute. The first indication that this is the case can be given by

recalling our remark that self and Others, finitude and infinitude are dialectical concepts.

By this is meant that the full development of the sense of each demands that of the other.

Thus, according to the arguments we have just sketched out, it is from my sense of

embodied finitude -- i.e., my being limited by my body only to one place at one time --

that I can posit Others as actually other. These Others, however, are required if I am to

posit my body's temporal finitude -- i.e., its organic birth and death.
 Notes
214

Husserl remarks on the latter, "certainly this finitude is concealed so long as my

birth has not been discovered, so long as I have not brought into play the co-being

(Mitsein) of Others" (Ms. C 17 II, p. 7, ca. Jan. 1, 1931). The full sense of my body's

finitude, thus, requires the co-being of those Others which are posited from the basis of

the first, spatially oriented sense of its finitude. Now, to see the complete circle of this

dialectic, we need only note what this full sense implies. According to it, Others in their

succeeding generations are taken to represent the actual, unbounded lifetime against

which my own finite lifetime is measured. Similarly, in their occupying positions "there"

in the world, they represent the indefinite spatial extendability of the actual world against

which my own surrounding world is measured in its finitude. Hence, their actuallity is

understood as containing my own insofar as they "bear" and "validate" the whole of the

spatial-temporal world in which I find both my embodied self and my surrounding world

as mere dependent parts. This dependence is not just the formal one of the logical

dependence of a part on a whole. It also has its organic component. As we quoted

Husserl, it is Others who reveal to me the fact of my birth as a finite living body. They

give it the sense of a body which comes to be from the activity of Others, a body which

will cease to be. Thus, part and parcel of what I learn from them is the notion that my

very being as embodied is dependent on Others, understood as existing before me. The

developed sense of my embodied finitude includes, in other words, the natural attitude's

view that I exist in a chain of generations, that my embodied being is the organic result

of those Others who existed before my body was "given" in a worldly sense. With this,

we apparently negate the beginning of the dialectic which asserted that it was from the

prior givenness of my worldly, embodied finitude that Others are first constitutively

given as independently existing.

The transcendental understanding of this dialectic is in terms of layers of

concealment. First of all, the worldly sense of my embodied finitude, a sense which
 Notes
215

includes the notion of its dependence on Others, conceals from me the role of this

finitude in positing Others. If I couldn't be here at all without Others in the form of my

parents, how can I say that the positing of actually existent Others depends upon the

finitude of this, my "here"? Such reflections lead Husserl to write: "Worldliness is, so to

speak, a transcendental blinding which ... makes the transcendental necessarily

inaccessible to one and also closes off [before the reduction] any possible conception of

it" (Ms. A V 10, p. 23, Nov. 5, 1931). Now, this first concealment is actually a

concealment of a concealment. Once we uncover the necessary role of our body's

finitude in positing Others, we still have to face the fact that our worldly status as

embodied is itself a concealment. As we quoted Husserl, "The individual, human self-

objectification in each monad is a transcendental self-concealment. This occurs in the

form of [its] spatial-temporal objectification as the 'soul' of its natural organic body

(Naturleibes) ..." (Ibid.). This concealment is not just that of the nineteenth century

"psychologism" which we mentioned above (See ). It involves the very notion of

subjectivity as a worldly phenomenon. Husserl writes: "The person in the condition of

his worldliness lives in pre-givenness, his own and that of the world; that is, he lives in a

horizon, he lives in the consciousness of finitude within an infinite world" (Ms. A V10,

p. 22). The condition of my worldliness is that of assuming that I am an embodied

subject within the spatial-temporal infinity of the world. Existing as such, I necessarily

experience the world in the manner of a horizon stretching from the near to the far, from

the known to the unknown. This horizon, itself, is understood in a worldly, spatial

temporal sense. It is a function of the givenness of my finite body and the givenness of

the spatial-temporal world, the first being located in the second.

Both forms of givenness were assumed by the starting point of our dialectic. It

took for granted that the surpassing quality of the world referred to the world's given,

spatial-temporal character. In asserting that I could not simultaneously occupy both the
 Notes
216

here and the there, it also assumed the givenness of my body as a specific object in the

spatial-temporal world. But for Husserl such assumed givenness is itself a concealment.

He writes immediately after the sentence we just quoted: "This structure of the pre-

givenness of the world for the human being, [this structure] of the human being for

himself, is now, in a second sense, that in which the human being lives in the confines of

finitude: namely insofar as his transcendental being as transcendental subjectivity

necessarily remains concealed to him in his natural life as a human being or, what is the

same, insofar as the transcendental subjectivity lives concealed in his humanity" (Ms. A

V10, p. 22, italics added).

This switch from his to the transcendental subjectivity points to the fact that the

whole notion of embodiment, which allows us to posit both ourselves and Others as

particular, finite beings, is itself a concealment. It conceals the singular subjectivity

which "lives" in our finitude. With this, we can say that the dialectic which asserts both

that my embodied finitude is a prior basis for my positing of Others and that Others must

pre-exist me in order that I may be born organically -- i.e., have a birth of my embodied

finitude -- is itself a "transcendental blinding." Rather like the Kantian antinomies which

derive opposite conclusions from what is ultimately the same premise, our dialectic also

throws its underlying premise into question. For Kant, we may recall, the ultimate

premise is that of the final reality of the visibly appearing world -- i.e., its claim to be a

being in itself (See Prologomena, § 52 a-b). For our dialectic, the premise is that

subjectivity is ultimately given in embodied particularity, i.e., that such particularity is its

final reality. Let us put this in terms of horizon. Either, as the dialectic assumes, the

horizonality of experience is a function of our finite embodiment in a surpassing spatial-

temporal world or this very finitude is itself to be understood as co-given with the

horizonality of experience. In the second case, the embodied finitude of myself and

Others is not an absolute, but only a constituted phenomenon. If this is correct, then the
 Notes
217

dialectical claims of my own and Other's embodied subjectivity to ground one another

are an illusion based on the fact of their being co-grounded in a single subjectivity which

"lives" in each of them. Each, in other words, becomes regarded as a self-objectification

of that absolute whose "self-expressions" result in the horizonal structure of experience,

and, hence, in the world and each of its individual, embodied subjects.

This last position, we may observe, rests on two fundamental insights. The first

is that my world horizon is, concretely speaking, the connection of my experiences into

certain perspectivally ordered series. It is such connections which first give me the sense

of my embodied finitude as a finitude within a spatial-temporal world. The second is

that the absolute, in objectifying itself in me, must objectify itself in an experiencer who

lives in horizon. This follows both in a specific and a general sense. Specifically, I am

an individual experiencer only by virtue of being positioned in the center of a

surrounding, perspectivally appearing world. If the absolute is to objectify itself in an

individual, it must, then, give rise to the connections which result in such a world. But

according to the first insight, this is precisely what results in the experiencer living in

horizon, i.e., living as an embodied finitude within a spatial-temporal world. Generally

speaking, the same point follows because the absolute, in objectifying itself in me, cannot

exhaust itself in my finitude. It must surpass it. In embodying itself in a finite

experiencer "in an oriented manner," it must necessarily embody itself in an experiencer

whose experiences point to what transcends his actual grasp. What we have here is a

living in horizon in which the "I can" always points beyond itself and, in so doing,

reveals its "hypothetical" quality. Insofar as this horizonality is necessarily structured

according to perspectival series, the experiencer interprets himself as living in a

surpassing, spatial-temporal world, one whose central core of the familiar or the well

known is always bounded by areas of the increasingly less familiar.

 Notes
218

This last sense of finitude stands at the beginning of the dialectic of self and

Others, finitude and infinitude. The dialectic presupposes it when it presupposes

subjective embodiment. It is only because I am embodied, that the birth and death of

Others has a reference to me. Behind this sense of embodiment is the connection of my

experiences into perspectivally ordered series. Similarly, my positing of Others as

extensions of my "I can" rests on embodiment and, hence, on the perspectival ordering of

my experience. This ordering locates my "I can" in a definite "here" (a "here" which

excludes its also being "there"). It situates this "I can" in a world of things whose

perspectival appearing always points beyond what I have experienced. In this way, it

reveals the "hypothetical" quality of my "I can."

Granting this, Others can be seen as implicit in me in a new manner. My being in

the world implies them in a sense deeper than that of their simply being fellow "bearers-

validators" of the world. The implication is through the ground of my being in the

world. I posit my Others on the basis of my finite access to the world; but the ordering

of experiences is what results in this finite access and, hence, in my self-interpretation as

finite. This ordering, then, is the basis of my positing of Others. Our conclusion

acknowledges that the perspectival ordering of experiences is required for there to be an

individual experiencer; but it also recognizes that the very same ordering gives this

experiencer a sense that it is dependent on Others for the explication of the world in

which it lives. It, thus, asserts that my finitely explicating subjectivity and the similar

finite subjectivity of Others are both correlated to the horizonal, perspectivally ordered

structure of experience. This signifies that the notion of Others as implicit in me

ultimately points, not to my finitude as objectively human, but rather to the ground of

this finitude. What is ultimately indicated is the unconditioned or non-finite absolute

which cannot embody itself in an individual experience without surpassing him. This
 Notes
219

surpassing implies the Others which are also his particular, finite objectifications. Here,

self and Others imply each other, not directly, but through their surpassing ground.

We can enlarge the above in terms of Husserl's assertion that "the disclosure of

the absolute, the transcendental being, shows that even the life of each transcendental

subject is a life of a finite being immersed in infinity, an infinity which reflects itself, so

to speak, in the concealment of human finitude and ... manifests itself in concealment"

(Ms. A V 10, p. 24, Nov. 9, 1931). The assertion of this passage is that human finitude is

a concealment in which "infinity" reflects and manifests itself. Let us first take this

infinity as the spatial-temporal infinity which is attributed to the world. This infinity

appears in the guise of the indefinitely extendable horizons of objects -- their "internal"

and "external" horizons. As such, it is correlated to these horizons' perspectival structure.

A perspectival series has the sense that no particular view of an object is the last, i.e., is a

view that inherently excludes the possibility of other views of the object. Thus, the

object which appears perspectivally has the sense of indefinite exhibition. Its own sense

is that of something which is experienced through an indefinitely extendable horizon of

experiences, one in which the actual views we have had are always capable of being

surpassed by the possible experiences which the object seems to afford. The same

perspectival structure of experiential horizons also grounds the possibility of the

existence of an individual experiencer of the world. It is the perspectival ordering of

experiences which allows these to have a defined 0-point in space and time; but this last,

for Husserl, is the pure ego understood as a subjective "center" of experience. Granting

that both the ego and its indefinitely extendable world are both co-given with the

perspectivality of experience, Husserl's assertion becomes intelligible. A perspectival

series manifests its potential infinity in a process that conceals as it reveals. Thus, a

perspectivally appearing object can only disclose one of its sides by concealing the other,

the "backside," from an individual experiencer. For such an experiencer, it therefore

 Notes
220

follows that "this world, this infinity, which is known in the manner of a horizon, ... is

constantly concealed even in [its] constant disclosure ..." (Ibid., p. 21).

To this we may add the point that my own sense of embodied finitude is given to

me (through the perspectival ordering of experience) as something spatial-temporal. It

is, thus, naturally correlated to the concealing-revealing character of such ordering. My

embodied finitude signifies that I cannot be in two places at the same time. I cannot

view simultaneously both the front and the back of an object. By itself, then, it implies

the object's disclosing one of its sides to me only by concealing its other sides. We can,

thus, say with Husserl that the infinity of the world "manifests itself" in the

"concealment" occasioned by human finitude. It does so because the very same ordering

of experiences, which manifests the indefinite extendability of the world, situates me as

an embodied experiencer who can only reveal by concealing. In other words, my own

embodiment, indeed, my own individuality as an ego, is itself a reflection of the same

horizonality by which the world manifests its spatial-temporal infinity.

According to the above, "infinity reflects itself ... in the concealment of human

finitude" since its own sense is implicit in the latter. The "concealment of human

finitude" and the perspectival sense of spatial-temporal infinity are co-grounded,

correlative phenomena. Each is implicit and, in this way, "reflects itself" in the other.

Now, when we turn to their ground, this reflection takes on a second, "absolute" sense. It

does not signify the implication of a correlative, but rather the manifestation of the

ground in the grounded. We can put this in terms of our earlier remark that the reduction

is possible only when it is considered as a transfer to the absolute of the qualities which

make the world a world. These qualities are the world's claims to be the all-embracing

totality of beings and to be the ground of all certainty of being. Now, the manifestation

of the absolute occurs through its constitutive objectification. Since, as we have seen,

constitution and the reduction are the same process in reverse order, the manifestation of
 Notes
221

the absolute through constitution should evince the reverse of the transfer the reduction

occasions. The "infinity" of the absolute with respect to being and certainty should

manifest itself by being transferred to the world. By recalling the arguments we have

sketched out, we can gain a certain indication of the nature and the necessity of this

transfer to the world. According to these, the absolute, in objectifying itself in an

individual, necessarily takes the form of an experiencer who sees the world as an all-

embracing infinity -- i.e., as possessing "the totality of absolute being" which Husserl

ascribes to the absolute. As we said, the individuial experiencer, if he is to exist as an

egological "center," must experience the world perspectivally. His own appearance,

then, is one with his sense of embodiment and his sense of being a part of a world which,

by its perspectival appearing, he necessarily takes as infinite. This last, then, is a

necessary result (or "reflection") of the objectification of the absolute in the individual's

finitude -- i.e., in his embodied concealment.

The same argument holds, mutatis mutandis, for the transfer to the world of the

absolute's quality of being the ground of all certainty. If the absolute is to manifest itself

in an egological center who is certain of his own existence, it must take the form of an

experiencer who possesses a corresponding world-certainty. This follows since the

central ego is tied to the world which centers or defines it. Thus, the unity of my world

points to myself as a unity of acts and, ultimately, to myself as a unitary ego, an ego who

experiences through acts. This also holds when we reverse the order of implication.

Thus, my certainty with regard to my being a uniting center is also my certainty with

regard to the world.

Granting this, we can say that the manifestation of the absolute in the individual

is not just its occurrence in a subject who necessarily lives in a world-certainty which is

correlative to his self-certainty; it is also its occurrence in an individual whose certainties

require that he take himself as a member of an indefinitely extended plurality of subjects.

 Notes
222

To see this, we must again observe that the world's perspectival character -- i.e., the

indefinite extendability of its horizons -- extends the world to infinity. This character

always makes the world's unity something which surpasses my own finite powers of

experience and synthesis. Now, if my own egological unity is to be correlated and,

indeed, given in connection with this surpassing world-unity, it must be given in relation

to subjects which can "bear" and "validate" the later. My self-certainty, in other words,

must imply the presence of those Others whose "I can" supplements my own limited

abilities in establishing the world's unity. Through Others, I take myself as overcoming

both the limitations of my finitude and the corresponding presumptiveness which is

inherent in my positing through persepctival series. They are taken as being in a position

to see, simultaneously with myself, the sides of objects which my own embodied status

prevents me from viewing. What we have, then, is a second infinitude which is

correlative to my given finitude as a subject. The spatial-temporal infinitude which I

imply through my finite embodiment -- and ultimately through my given being as a

unitary center of a perspectival world -- is matched by a corresponding infinitude of

subjects who experience and "validate" this first infinity.

The above should, of couse, not be seen as denying that on the level of my

ground -- Husserl's pre-egological level -- neither my embodied status nor my self-

certainty as an experiential center is an absolute necessity. Both are contingent on the

connections through which the absolute brings about the world. The necessities here are

only hypothetical. We can only assert that if the absolute does ground a world and, with

this, its own objectification as a finite experiencer, then the above described transfers do

occur. With regard to the transfer of certainty, it then follows that the absolute's "infinity

reflects itself ... in the concealment of human finitude" by virtue of this finitude's self-

pluralization. This follows since it is only through the indefinite multiplication of such

finite experiencers that the self-certainty of the absolute -- i.e., its own lack of
 Notes
223

presumptiveness and contingency -- could ever hope to achieve any objective, constituted

manifestation. Only then could the world's quality of being the totality of beings

achieve, as an experienced and validated totality, the status of being the experiential

ground of all ontological certainty.

Once we assert that the manifestation of the absolute occurs on the worldly,

objective level of "the concealment of human finitude," we must also assert that this

manifestation is, itself, a concealment. This follows both with regard to the individual

and the plurality of individuals. Considered in itself, the absolute's infinity is its

existence as a ground of all possible horizons. Since an existing ego, as a center of a

defined word, can only embody one of these horizons, the absolute's manifestation in his

finitude is, by definition, a self-limitation. It is a concealment of the absolute in its

infinite extent -- i.e., in its ability to ground not just this individual's surrounding world,

but every possible horizonal structure of a world. Similarly, it can be said that the

manifestation of the absolute as a plurality of finite subjects conceals its own nature as a

pre-plural ground for the constitution of every possible singular subject and

corresponding plurality. Here, we pass beyond the argument of our last few paragraphs.

It would lead us to assume that an indefinitely extended plurality of subjects could

ground the world in the certainty of its being. The assumption, however, is a further

concealment. This follows because such subjects do not ultimately act as "validators-

bearers" of the world in its indefinitely extendable horizons. In the finitude which

pertains to each experiencer, their status, as we have seen, is simply that of correlatives to

the world's perspectivally structured horizonality.

We can gain a certain insight into this concealment by attempting to ground the

world horizon through a subjective plurality. What prevents our success is, in the first

instance, simply this horizon's basic character of always surpassing any actual subjective

grasp. This holds not just for my subject but also for any finite totality of individual
 Notes
224

experiencers. The horizon remains a horizon, i.e., a structure with the central core of the

familiar shading off into the unknown. It is always experienced in the manner of "I -- or

we -- could always go further." As we said, this going further is a function of the

perspectival ordering of the experiences composing the horizon. As such, it is correlated

to the first, primordial sense of an object's transcendence, its sense of indefinite

exhibitability and, hence, of transcending or surpassing the experiences which I have

actually had of it. This sense is not cancelled by the bringing in of other subjects.

Collectively regarded, their actual experiences never equal the infinite exhibition which a

perspectivally appearing world is capable of. They, too, as finite, live in the horizonality

of experience or, what is the same, in the transcendence of the world they experience. In

such a situation, we cannot assert that the world, as the totality of all that is, is their

constituted product. The actual experiences from which they constitute are only a finite

part of the whole which the world affords. Such experiences are, thus, never

constitutively equal to the surpassing whole itself. Because of this, Husserl first writes,

"The transcendence in which the world is constituted exists by virtue of its constituting

itself by means of Others and the generatively constituted co-subjectivity." But then he

immediately adds, "Correction: this explanation of transcendence is frivolous

(leichtsinnig). Of course, the primordial world [of an individual subject] is finite; but the

intersubjective, human surrounding world, the 'earthly' surrounding world, is also finite.

It is always a cultural world, experienceable for us humans as the world of actual

experience, actual exhibitability ..." (Ms. C 17 II, pp. 7-8, ca. Jan. 1, 1931). Husserl's

point is that the world's transcendence, when understood in terms of the horizonality of

experience, can never be a constituted result of the actual experiences of a finite totality

of subjects. It rather shows itself in its quality of always surpassing such experiences.

What about the attempt to ground the world horizon in terms of possibility -- i.e.,

the possible experiences of continually possible new human subjects? Husserl sometimes
 Notes
225

considers this notion. He writes, for example, "We, in [our] finitude, only have a world

from the finitude of the fellow subjects actually involved with us -- but, in horizon, [we

have] the possibility of continually new human beings entering in [to the intersubjective

community]" (Ms. B III 7, p. 7, 1933). The difficulty with this attempt, as he notes in

another manuscript from the same year, is the assumption it makes about being. He

writes: "As opposed to the world, which is relative to constituting subjectivity, the latter,

itself, may be absolutely existing. But is transcendental subjectivity something which

actually exists absolutely? Does it not, itself, have a limited duration -- this, when we do

not wish to assume [its] being in an actually infinite time ...?" (Ms. C 11 I, p. 2, 1933).

The necessity for assuming this infinite being follows from the infinite exhibitability of

the perspectivally appearing world. A subjective plurality capable of apprehending the

infinitely extendable horizon of such a world must be assumed to have a corresponding

extendability. Thus, to "catch up," as it were, with this ever expanding horizon, the

plurality of subjects would have to be conceived as an infinite all-embracing totality. It

would have to be thought of as present everywhere, extending through infinite space and

"actually infinite time." As long as we conceive of such subjects as finite, individual

beings, this conception is impossible. We cannot conceive of an all-embracing totality of

individual beings as long as we limit our thoughts to the categories of such beings.

Given that such categories are substantiality, individuality and plurality, they only allow

us to conceive of sums or collections to which new members can always be added. Such

collections of numerical singulars can never be thought of as "not having a beyond."

They can never be taken as all -embracing.

Apart from this problem of conceivability, there is another, related difficulty. As

Husserl notes, if we are really to think of the possibility of continually new subjects, then

the "openness" of possibility demands that we also conceive of the possibility that there

are no further subjects. In Husserl's words:

 Notes
226

The being of unknown Others, Others which are not distinctly and determinately
indicated, is a real possibility of being, a real possibility of being able to reach
them; but it is not excluded that nothing will be reached, that there are final
Others and "over and beyond this, there is nothing"; but that is just a mere
possibility and remains a possibiilty. Openness remains openness.
Transcendental all-subjectivity is constituted as the totality of those whom I and
we have factually reached (with a horizon of the possibility of error); and this
nucleus has its horizon of possible unknown, still unreached Others, with the
possibility that there are no Others" (Ms. K III 12, p. 38, 1935).

This "openness" of possibility results from the Husserlian position that possibility does

not itself express an a priori guarantee. Possibility for Husserl remains mere possibility

as long as we exclude from its notion the facticity which would give it a "real"

significance.

We may express the necessity of the openness of possibility by a series of

equivalent notions. The ultimacy of facticity gives us, as we said, the correlative notions

of the non-contingency of the absolute and the contingency of the world which it

grounds. Now, this contingency is, itself, correlated by Husserl to the horizonality of our

experiences of the world. That we experience the world perspectivally means that we

experience it in terms of a finitely accessible horizon. This, in turn, signifies that the

world can never be completely validated by us, i.e., confirmed as an absolutely existing

"being in itself". The world, then, is not just contingent when viewed from the vantage

point of its unconditioned ground; it also remains contingent from the vantage point of its

horizonally experiencing subjects. To add yet another concept to this nexus, we note that

the transcendence of the world is also a function of the perspectivally structured

horizonality of our experience. The senses of the world's contingency and transcendence

are, thus, always given together insofar as they have the same condition. Granting the
 Notes
227

above, the attempt to think of an infinite plurality of subjects which could ground the

world's transcendence undoes the web of these interrelated notions. Such an infinite

plurality would be able to establish the thesis of the world's "being in itself." It would,

then, overcome what Husserl sees as the necessary contingency of the world. With this,

it would assume the position of the world's unconditioned ground. Furthermore, insofar

as we conceive of such subjects as finite and embodied, we conceive them as parts of the

world. The unconditioned ground of the world could, therefore, be understood as

immanent in the world. In other words, if the world contains the guaranteed possibility

of such an infinite, intersubjective plurality, it could be understood as containing with

itself -- i.e., within its own possibilities -- its unconditioned ground. With this

implication, we come to the concealment we mentioned above: the concealment of the

actual ground of the world by the thought of a plurality of individual subjects acting as

its ground.

For Husserl, this concealment is shown to be such once we realize that subjects,

in their finitude, are correlatives of the world's horizonality. This signifies that they are

always given and always exist within such perspectivally structured horizonality. In

terms of their own thesis, they must, therefore, be regarded as contingent -- i.e., as

dependent -- on a givenness which always surpasses their grasp. In Husserl's words, "...

because horizons are just open possibilities of being and necessarily have the character of

extendability (Erweiterung) -- although this extendability does not have to be fulfillable

-- the transcendental totality of subjects is contingent, because it always remains open, I

am contingent ..." (Ms. K III 12, p. 39, 1935). The basic position here is one that we

have referred to a number of times. The constant extendability and openness which

characterizes the perspectival horizonality of experiences forestalls every final thesis

concerning being -- even one's own. As Husserl writes on experiencing in horizon:

"And everything is concealed, even the quite well known, even one's own human being,
 Notes
228

one's own bodilyness, one's own being as an ego; they are always in finitude, in the

relativity of obviousness and hiddenness, and this according to each and every [feature]"

(Ms. A V 10, p. 21, Nov. 9, 1931).

Put in these terms, the assertion of this "openness" is simply another way of

recalling the fact that the world appears contingent (or open) both from the perspective of

the horizonally experiencing subjects and from the view of the ultimate facticity of their

ground. In terms of such openness, there is, then, not just the possibility that we may

reach Others beyond which there are no Others, i.e., that we may be prevented from

infinitely extending the intersubjective community. There is also the possibility that the

thesis of the entire intersubjective community -- that of an existing totality of subjects --

may collapse. The openness of the horizon makes us treat the thesis of a plurality of

finite, worldly experiencers no differently than that of any other thesis concerning

individual entities. It conceals the thesis' finiality from us and, hence, makes us regard

its object as something contingent.

The collapse of the attempt to ground the world horizon by an actual or potential

plurality of subjects returns us to our earlier conclusion. The world horizon is not the

result of the pluraltiy of subjects. As correlative to such subjects, it is rather the result of

what grounds both itself and such subjects. The nature of this grounding can be specified

by recalling Husserl's assertion that "the absolute lies at the basis of all possibilities ..." It

is, as we said, the grounding possibility of all possibilities. As such, it always surpasses

not just our actual world but also every particular possible world. Included in its

possibilities is, in fact, the possibility of a "non-world." It is conceivable that experience

could collapse into a "tumult" with the consequent dissolution of both the perspectivally

ordered world horizon and the egological centers which this horizon situates. The

horizonality which the absolute grounds is, thus, an open horizonality in a double sense.

It is open in the sense that it is, itself, contingent in its ordered, perspectival structure. It
 Notes
229

is also open in the sense that it contains all the possible worlds which this structure is

capable of. The same assertion follows for the subjects which exist in horizonality. For

Husserl, to live "in finitude, in the relativity of obviousness and hiddenness" -- in short,

in horizonality -- "... is the structure of human existence." Implicit in this structure is the

possibility of the collapse of such human existence as well as its openness to every

possible form of existing. Both follow from the surpassing quality of the ground. In

surpassing its paticular, finite self-expressions, the ground manifests itself in the

horizonal structure of the latter by making this structure imply infinite, open-ended

possibilities of being. Taking the absolute as a flowing, experiential stream whose

connections can ground all possible beings, Husserl, thus, writes: "... the totality of

monadic being exists as being in horizonality, and infinity pertains to this -- infinite

potentiality. Infinite streaming as implying the infinities of the stream, infinity, the

iteration of potentialities" (Ms. C I., Sept. 21-22, 1934, HA XV, Kern ed., p. 670).

As we said, this infinitude of possibilities (or "potentialities") objectifies itself as

concealment. Its very openness conceals from the intersubjective community its possible

extent and its possible continuance in being. Both concealments, we may observe, can be

directly derived from the description of the absolute as an alphabet of experience, i.e., its

description as an assemblage of those "absolute essentialities" or "pure" experiences from

which all temporal relations (and, hence, ordered connections) have been abstracted.

Thus, with regard to the concealment of the extent of the intersubjective community, it is

to be recalled that an examination of the essence of "man" leaves open the question of

how many men there are. The essence expresses only a common notion which can be

exemplified by some number of indiviuals. The same point holds for the essential

elements of experience, the "alphabet," forming the absolute. They too have the

character of one in many with regard to the individuals which they can form. What this

signifies is that the openness of the extent of the intersubjective community -- including
 Notes
230

the open possibility that it might collapse and, therefore, not have any extent at all -- is

simply a function of the absolute's own character. It is the latter's indeterminacy which

prevents this concealment from ever being overcome. Mutatis mutandis, we can make

the same claim about the concealment of the finality of the thesis of subjective being.

The elements which form this being are those of the alphabet. But the latter exist

independently of the unities they form. The lack of any necessary tie between the two

signifies, as we said, that the dependent, constituted unities can never be regarded as

necessary but only as contingent. As having no independent necessity, the

conclusiveness of the thesis of their being is naturally excluded.

We may sum up our conclusions by drawing out what they imply with regard to

Others being implicit in me. We have, first of all, the conclusion that our positing of

Others as fellow "validators-bearers" of the world horizon is itself a concealment. This

concealment, we said, is revealed to be such because such subjects themselves exist and

are given along with the horizonality of the world. This is shown by the fact that both

their numerical extent and the possibility of their continuance as an existing,

intersubjective community remains in the concealment which is inherent in the world's

perspectivally structured horizonality. Our last remarks which trace this concealment to

the absolute -- i.e., to its inherent indeterminacy as a ground -- point again to the fact that

the horizonal givenness (or existence) of subjects is simply a result of their being

grounded by the absolute. The concealment involved in positing Others as grounding the

world horizon is, therefore, a concealment of the absolute in its own function of

grounding subjects in the horizonality of their being.

Let us express this conclusion in terms of the formula, "being equals being

given." Prior to the reduction to the absolute, it signfiies "being equals being given to a

subject" -- i.e., to myself alone or myself in conjunction with fellow subjects. With the

reduction to the absolute -- i.e., to the lowest level of constituting phenomena -- this
 Notes
231

interpretation no longer holds. As Husserl writes, "On the lowest level, we do not yet

have an ego ..." (See above, ). There is, then, no ego or subject to whom being can

be given. Here, the positing of egos as ultimate factors explanatory of being shows itself

as further concealment of the absolute. The absolute, in itself, is simply a giving of

being which provides not just the "data" but also the egos to whom such data are given.

The sign that this is so is, as we said, the very structure of egological being as being-in-

horizonality.

Let us now relate this to our positing of Others. As just noted, when we first

enter into the transcendental attitude, the necessity for Others is thought under the

equivalence of being and being given. I am motivated to posit Others as subjects to

whom the world's surpassing quality can be given. They are thought of as grounding the

being of the world in its surpassing extent. Corresponding to this, I assert that Others are

implicit in me by their "bearing" and "validating" the world horizon which I implicitly

possess in my self-consciousness -- i.e., my consciousness of myself as existing within a

world which surpasses me. Once, however, I do perform the reduction to the absolute

level, this assertion shows itself to have the same concealing character as the

interpretation of "being given" on which it is based. I then assert that the presence to me

of Others as other than myself is a correlative of the transcendence, the horizonality of

the world. I also claim that this transcendence or horizonality is not a result of their

constitutive action. Thus, I do not see Others as "bearers-validators" of the world, but

see them as "born" along with the world its horizonality and transcendence. I see them in

terms of the absolute which is the ultimate ground of such horizonality and

transcendence. In correspondence to this interpretation, I see Others as implicit in me by

virtue of our collective being in a grounded horizonality and transcendence. Proceeding

through a self-reduction to this ground, I, therefore, see Others implicit in me by virtue

of my ground's surpassing infinitude. It is a ground which always exceeds me in my

 Notes
232

finitude and, in so doing, always implies Others. Its possibilities exceed my own.

Implicit, then, in its infinitude, is not just my "I can," but also the "I can" of every

possible Other which I may (or may not) encounter through the horizonality of my

objectified being.
 Notes
233

CHAPTER IV
A FIRST SOLUTION TO THE PROBLEM OF INTERSUBJECTIVITY

§1. The Elements of the Problem

It is now time to take the themes of the earlier chapters and view them together.

Together they form what can be called a first solution to the problem of

intersubjectivity.

Let us begin by reviewing our analysis of the problem. At its heart is the

distinction between the factual process of recognition and the principle presupposed by

this process. Factually speaking, we do recognize Others through similarities in our

appearance and behavior. In attempting to apprehend the Other as a subject like

ourselves, our process is one of attempting to apply or "transfer" to him those meanings

with which we are familiar in our own regard. These are the meanings which are tied to

our being in the world: We are the beings to whom the world appears, the beings for

whom it has certain meanings. These meanings prompt in us certain "typical" responses,

pleasure, fear, etc., which manifest themselves in our behavior. The bodily appearance

of our behavior points back to the fact that our being in the world is that of a

psychophysical organism: a being that we interpret as that of a "soul" with a "besouled"

or animate organism. Now, what is at issue is not this factual process of recognition, but

the principle presupposed by it. As we said, the principle is that of sharing meanings, of

having a world of shared meanings in common with Others. Expressed subjectively, i.e.,

in terms of Husserl's doctrine of the constitution of meanings, the principle is that of the

harmony of our constitutive systems. These are the systems which, through synthesis,

generate the perceptual meanings which form for each of us our appearing, surrounding

worlds.
 Notes
234

The legitimacy of our transfer to Others of the meanings which are familiar to us

and form our surrounding worlds presupposes this principle. Without it, the factual

process of recognition seems to have a certain circularity of reasoning at its basis.

Considered as a rational, verificational process, it appears to involve the circularity of the

petitio principii. The petitio is such that the criterion for our sharing meanings is the

observed similarity of our behavior; and the criterion for the claim that our behavior is

actually similar is the sharing of meanings. To break this circle, we must assume that the

perceptual meanings we gather from the world, in particular, those of one another's

appearing behavior, are actually similar. Expressed subjectively, we must assume in

advance that the constitutive systems, which Husserl sees as generating meanings, are

already harmonious.

To continue this review, let us mention again the difficulties in establishing this

principle through the arguments which are given in the Cartesian Meditations. Such

arguments, according to Sartre, establish only a "parallelism of empirical egos." As

Schutz writes, this is because their initial term is "my own self-given life as a

psychophysical I" (Collected Papers I, ed. cit., p. 197). Thus, the basis for my transfer of

senses to the Others as "like me" is, necessarily, my finite embodied being -- i.e., my

being within the world as a finite "empirical (or "real") ego. "Like me" signifies being

finitely embodied as I am. The first difficulty, here, is that although the factual process

of recognition demands the bodily appearing of the Other, a parallelism of embodied

egos is not what Husserl should be aiming at. What the arguments of the Cartesian

Meditations require is a parallelism of transcendental egos. These, however, are not

empirical. As Husserl defines them, they do not have "the value of something real in the

naively experienced, pre-given world"; they do not have "the sense of being a soul of

animate organism (Leibes) which exists in a pre-given, spatial-temporal nature"

("Nachwort," ed. cit., p. 145). As non-empirical or non-appearing, they must, in a

 Notes
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certain sense, be considered as prior to all appearing behavior within the world. This

priority receives its definite sense by the fact that the transcendental ego is the

constituting ego. Given this, two conclusions follow. The first is that a harmony of

constitutive systems, if it is to be established, requires a consideration of egos as

transcendental, i.e., as constituting. The second is that the pairing or parallelism, which

Husserl establishes between embodied, appearing subjects is one which links only

constituted products. So conceived, it does not establish a harmony of constitutive

systems, but rather is itself a pairing which presupposes a deeper, constitutive level.

A further, closely related difficulty centers on Husserl's frequent assertion that

constitution is constitutive of both being and sense. Taking the two as equivalent,

constitution appears to be productive or creative of the "unity of sense" which, for

Husserl, is an individual, objective being. As we noted, two absolutely independent,

"creative" subjects could only accidentally share meanings in common. A truly creative

subject is one that is truly independent. The latter signifies that its constitutive activities

are not limited beforehand -- either formally, through presupposing a priori rules of

constitution, or materially, through presupposing the independent being of the elements

from which it constitutes. Such independence, thus, means that there is no ground or

reason for supposing that they necessarily constitute (and, hence, share) meanings in

common. In Schutz's words, the assumption of this independence implies that each ego

could creatively constitute a world with its Others "just for himself" alone. To assume

otherwise is to commit the petitio. It is to assume what we have no ground for assuming:

this being the harmony of their independent syntheses or, objectively speaking, their

sharing in a common world of meanings.

§2. Constitution and the reversal of the Seinsrede

 Notes
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The root of this last difficulty is not per se with the notion of constitution as

productive or creative. Indeed, insofar as this notion springs from that of the absolute

independence of the final, constitutive ground, it is inherent in the idea of constitution.

As we remarked, this idea presupposes the independence of the constituting from the

constituted (See above, pp. 171f.). It, thus, leads us to conceive that which is ultimately

constituting as ultimately "independent" and, hence, as ultimately "creative" in its action.

Rather than the foregoing, the difficulty, we can say, results from our wishing to locate

this creative function in the individual subject. If we do so, a number of conclusions,

fatal to Husserl's attempt to constitutively ground an intersubjective world, necesarily

follow. Thus, we would be forced to conclude that the plurality of subjects formed a

plurality of singulare tanta -- i.e., a plurality of necessary and self-sufficient grounds of

the world. If we wished to avoid the apparent contradiction in this notion, we would

have to suppose a plurality of separate, unconnected worlds. One world, as we remarked,

could not have a plurality of self-sufficient grounds for its being, each of which was

conceived as necessary for it. The final result, then, would be a transcendental solipsism,

the solipsism of each subject and of each subjectively constituted world.

The conclusion this leads to may be expressed as follows: We assert that to

locate the creative function of constitituion within an individual being is to ignore the

reversal of the Seinsrede. The reversal signifies, in Fink's words, that "being is, in

principle, constituted ..." ("Proposal," ed. cit., p. 196; F. 201). The sense of objective

being is reversed from that of an independent reality, existing in itself, to that of

something constitutively dependent on the "life" which constitutes it. A second, but no

less important reversal is implicit in the notion of constitution as grounding. As we

stated, the ground must show different characteristics from what it grounds (or

constitutes). The conceptions of the two, ground and grounded, are distinct by

definition. Given this, we cannot talk about the constitutive ground in the same way as
 Notes
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about the being which it grounds. We, thus, can understand the call for a "reversal in the

usual sense of the discourse about being" in terms of the sense springing from the

familiarity of our living on the level of the grounded. We must reverse this sense if we

are to characterize the ground.1

To make these two reversals concrete, we have only to note that all objective,

real being has the characteristics of numerical singularity, of being one among many.

The first reversal signifies that such being is not independent. The second signifies that it

is constitutively depend on what, per se, is not an individual, not a numerically singular

being. This point applies directly to the subject considered as a "real" or "personal" ego.

These aspects of its individual being are, for Husserl, "constituted objectifications."

They result from the connections of experiences forming the individual cogito and

forming, as well the personal ego, taken as the unity of its cogitationes. The same point

applies, in a mediate way, to the subject considered as a pure, non-empirical ego.

Although this ego is not constituted, it is dependent in its singularity on the "centering"

of the constituted. It receives its numerical singularity by virtue of having its stream of

consciousness, and its surrounding world, the latter being constituted so as to situate the

ego as its spatial-temporal center.

The application of this double reversal to the being of subjects prevents us from

considering thier plurality as a plurality of independent grounds of the world. More

precisely put, the two reversals signify that we can no longer assume a plurality of

independent, subjective syntheses simply on the basis of the plurality of subjects'

numerically singular being. Such being is, itself, a function of constitutive synthesis. It

results directly or indirectly from it. It, thus, follows that the plurality of numerically

singular subjects -- subjects which exist as one among many -- is posterior, not prior, to

the synthesis which is productive of numerically singular being. In other words, the

creative or productive synthesis must already be given for there to be singular egos, each
 Notes
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with its singular, surrounding world. This pre-givenness, we may observe, is reflected in

the passive nature of lower level constitution. For Husserl, "passive" signifies, first of

all, "without the action of the ego ..." It signifies, secondly, that which is constitutive of

the ego in the individuality of its life (Ms. C 17 IV, pp. 1-2, 1930).

With regard to the intersubjective harmony, the import of the above may be

expressed in a number of ways. Its negative significance is that the individual subject is

not capable of breaking the passively constituted basis of an intersubjective harmony.

The creative power which is capable of such disruption is not a function of its being, i.e.,

its an sich Sein as one thing which exists among many. Such power, insofar as it

presupposes an absolute independence, is appropriate only to the lowest level of

constitution. But as we quoted Husserl, "On the lowest level, we do not yet have an ego,

a person, a physical thing..." (Ms. D 13 XXI, p. 124, 1907-09). Thus, no individual is

here present who could be conceived as exercising this creative power.

To put the same point in terms of another strand of Husserl's thought, we note

that the conception of an individual being which possesses, in its independence, creative

powers, is a conception opposed to the primacy of facticity. Such primacy implies that

all individual being is contingent -- i.e., dependent on the factual course of experiences

which form the being's constitutive elements. It further implies, as we quoted Kern, that

"world-constitution does not have a basis in a transcendental subjectivity which could

guarantee the genesis and continance of this constitution ..." (Husserl u. Kant, ed. cit., p.

297). This follows since the subject is itself contingent on the very facticity which

permits world-constitution to take place. In Husserl's view, to deny this position is to

posit, like Kant, an individual, subjective unity behind the appearances of the world.

Such a subjective unity, as independent of the facticity of the appearances of the world,

would necessarily be nouminal. Its independence of facticity in its following its

categorical rules of synthesis signifies that it embodies an a priori of constitution, one

 Notes
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which is determinative of the facticity of experiences. Such a return to Kantianism is, of

course, the opposite of Husserl's phenomenological method.

With this, we can express the positive significance of the above. We can assert

that the self-objectification of the absolute into a plurality of individual subjects leads to

its self-objectification as an intersubjective community. As creatively constituting, the

absolute is a unique singular. It, thus, lacks the self-otherness -- i.e., ontological self-

distinction -- which would allow of its disharmonious self-objectification.

Disharmoniousness must have its ontological root. Lack of harmony in styles of

synthesis presupposes that the synthesizers are actually other. It assumes that they

already form a plurality of distinct beings, each of which is capable of a distinct action.

Yet on the "lowest" level, the level on which the absolute does creatively constitute, there

are no distinct indivdiuals or pluralities thereof. Otherwise put: the notion of a plurality

of constituters is a constituted result, not a determining factor, of the absolute's self-

objectification into such a plurality. Granting this, we can think of this self-

objectification as disharmonious only if we ignore the reversal of the Seinsrede; for we

must then picture the ground -- Husserl's "ultimately functioning subjectivity" -- as

possessing those characteristics of self-otherness and ontological self-distinction which

are appropriate, not to itself, but to the individuals which it grounds. To put this in terms

of individual subjects, we can say that to the point that we do consider them as creatively

constituting, they must be seen as "reflections" of one and the same, uniquely singular

subjectivity. The word, reflections, perhaps, gives too great a sense of their distinctness.

To eliminate this, it can also be said that to acknowledge the creative function of my own

constitution is to acknowledge my essential coincidence with Others in the absolute. As

we shall see in the following chapter, this acknowledgement is not, for Husserl, a

"metaphysical," non-intuitive deduction. It is rather one which he attempts

phenomenologically to establish.
 Notes
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§3. Recognition and the Reversal of the Seinsrede

Let us now turn to the significance of the reversal with regard to our process of

recognizing Others. The first thing to be observed is that the reversal implies a

contradiction between our attempting to recognize the Other as individually Other and, at

the same time, as a separate, independent ground of the world. We have, first of all, a

contradiction involving numerical and unique singularity. The first singularity is a

characteristic of that which can be individually other; while the second, as we have seen,

is appropriate only to the ground of the world, the ground of the totality of numerically

singular entities. The contradiction, then, is one of attempting to apply to the same

subject predicates which are appropriate to radically different types of being. We

essentially say the same thing when we characterize the contradiction as one involving

two levels of the absolute: the absolute in itself and in the "first" of its self-

objectifications. It is only in itself that it is the independent ground of the world. When

it is objectified as human subjectivity, it loses this quality but gains those of plurality and

otherness. A third way of characterizing the contradiction is to assert that it involves the

activity and passivity of the ego. As individually acting, the ego does not ground the

world. The world pre-exists for it; in Husserl's phrase, it is "pre-given to it" as the field

for its activity. The world, here, presents itself as the objects and circumstances upon

which the ego can act and make a difference. In distinction to this, the passivity of the

ego points to what first results in this pre-given world. The constitutive processes

referred to as "passive" are those which ground the world; but, as we quoted Husserl,

such passive constitution takes place "without the activity of the ego ..." Given that the

pre-given world is what situates and, hence, individualizes the ego, this contradiction is

one between processes which are prior to the ego and processes which presuppose it. It

is one between the "before" and the "after" of the individual ego.2
 Notes
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Now, the attempt to "recognize" or grasp as a unity this contradiction in terms

must necessarily fail. We cannot recognize the Other as both a numerical singular and as

a ground of all sense and being. As we earlier observed, the connection of rationality

and positing is such that the logical laws coincide with those of constitution. A logical

contradiction cannot constitute itself as an appearing, self-consistent unity of sense. A

transcendental ego involving the above contradictions can, thus, never appear to us. It

cannot provide us with an intuitive basis for its recognition.

This point was implicit in the conclusion of Chapter I. As we noted, Husserl's

description of the transcendental subject as a constitutive ground of the world's being and

sense prevented us from considering it in terms of the latter. It signified that the

ultimately constituting subject could not be regarded as an individual ("worldly") being --

i.e., as an objective "unity of sense." Thus, it can never be recognized as such. The way

it could be recognized as ultimately constituting was indicated by the assertion that this

subject "does not acknowledge an outside." This implied, as we noted, that the

recognition appropriate to the being of such a subject was not one which regarded him

from the "outside" as individually other, i.e., as a subject who is "over and against me" in

the separateness of his being. It is, rather, a recognition which proceeds from my

acknowledgement that I am, in some sense, coincident with him on the level of our

ultimate constitution. On this level, I must, as it were, be "inside" of him; for only in this

way could my recognition and this subject's self-recognition, which denies an "outside,"

be said to agree.

Once we grant that the original demands for recognizing the Other are

contradictory, we can answer the objections we have cited. The first of these is that

Husserl does not consider or give any evidence for the existence of the Other as

"transcendental," this being understood as his existence as an independently constituting

ego. The objection, in other words, is that the only thing which Husserl actually
 Notes
242

establishes is a parallelism of constituted, singular, "empirical egos." To this, we must

answer that the numerically singular ego does not independently constitute. As a pure

ego, it is tied to its surrounding world as its center. Its dependence on "its" world rules

out in advance the independence which would be required to ascribe to it a creative

constitutive function. Thus, our answer is that there is no ego possessing the

characteristics which the objection assumes. The demand that we consider the Other as

other and as independently (creatively) constituting simply expresses a contradiction in

terms. As such, there can be no evidence for its existence; its constitution as an

appearing presence is an impossibility.

With the above, the objection that Husserl establishes only a "parallelism of

empirical egos" loses its force. He cannot establish a parallelism of independently

constituting transcendental egos which are individually Other. Indeed, insofar as such a

parallelism is the goal of the Cartesian Meditations, it sets itself an impossible task.

Here, we should recall that a parallelism of real, empirical egos is also a parallelism of

"pure" egos. For Husserl, "There are as many pure egos as there are real egos ..." In

other words, if an ego posits another ego as real -- i.e., "as a human being with a human

personality, it then posits as implicitly belonging to him a pure ego with its stream of

consciousness" (Ideen II, Biemel ed., p. 110). The tie between the two is that between

the pure ego and its surrounding world. The latter is necessary for the individual being

of the pure ego. Thus, as we indicated, the pure ego can always be interpreted in terms

of its real, surrounding world. It can be taken as a reality among worldly realities. This

interpretation is correct for the level where the ego achieves its individuality. Given its

dependence on its world, the ego's objectification as a worldly reality and as a "pure"

individual who experiences the world are, in fact, simultaneous. Otherwise expressed:

to acknowledge another ego's separate "real" being is to acknowledge that it has become

individualized, that it has become a singular, "pure" subject.

 Notes
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This acknowledgement does not involve the notion of this ego's independence --

its creative functioning. On the contrary, it is one that views the ego as a passively

situated center -- i.e., as a "centering" of experience qua experience of a surrounding

world. As "here" in this world, it must have the sense of existing in a "pre-given spatial-

temporal nature." This follows since its being as a center inherently demands the

perspectival appearing which locates it as a "here" in the "there" of a given spatial-

temporal world. As Thomas Seebohm writes, " ... the difference between the 'here' and

the 'there' is a difference which belongs to the sphere of [its] ownness and thus to

immanence.3 By definition, then, the notion of a pure ego is distinguished from that of

the independently constituting transcendental ego. It is the latter which, by virtue of its

creative functioning, does not acknowledge an "outside" -- i.e., a "there" which is

opposed to its "here." We can, thus, say that to acknowledge the Other as a "pure"

experiencer is to acknowledge him as located, as I am, in a "here" -- and also a "now" --

both of which are defined by a passively constituted spatial-temporal world. It is also to

acknowledge his inability, parallel to my own, to break the passive basis of the

intersubjective harmony.

Let us relate this last point to the presupposition for recognizing Others through

their behavior. The behaving subject, as embodied, is recognized as real. To recognize

him as a pure subject like myself, I must move from his bodily, worldly reality to his

worldly experience -- i.e., to his existence as a center of experience of a surrounding

world. The presupposition for this is, as we said, our sharing of senses. Behavior similar

to my own points to the Other as a subject like myself if I can assume that it is a behavior

prompted by the same typical senses of the world which I experience. It is only at this

point that I can move from the bodily reality of the Other to his existence as a subject --

i.e., as a subject to whom the world is given in the form of experiential unities of sense

(Husserl's "real unities").

 Notes
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More closely regarded, this presupposition implies two others. Given, as we

said, that two "creative" subjects could only accidentially share meanings or senses in

common, our presupposition of shared senses denies the creative functioning of

individual constitutive systems. The senses of the appearing world could not serve as

independent criteria for each subject's evaluating the behavior of Others if such senses

were the private constructs or individual creations of each subject. With this, we have

the presupposition that the individual subjects capable of mutual recognition are

passively given the senses of the world. The typical senses by which the world appears

to them as a field for their activity, for their "behavior" taken in its broadest terms, are

assumed to be passively constituted, pre-given senses. Now, the notion of this pre-

givenness, when combined with the definition of the subject as that to whom the world is

given, implies a second presupposition. Subjects must not just be taken as behaving

according to the pre-given senses of the world, they must also be considered as defined

by the latter. In other words, bodily behavior points to the Other as a subject only if we

can say that the senses corresponding to this behavior are senses which first establish

individual, subjective existence. Without this, the argument which proceeds from

behavior to sense and, thence, to the existent subject cannot reach its final term. The

argument, thus, demands that this final term be taken as a center of experience whose

individual existence is dependent on the given senses of a passively constituted world. In

its functioning in recognition, the notion of a world of shared senses must involve both

the pre-givenness of these senses and, with this, the notion that the giving of such senses

situates and defines the experiencing subjects who apprehend them. This, of course, is

the implicit basis of our statement that an acknowledgement of the Other as "real" -- i.e.,

as a bodily appearing, behaving subject -- has inherent in its notion an acknowledgement

of him as "pure". Here, we understand a pure subject as a center of experiences whose

very being as a center is defined by the senses of these experiences.

 Notes
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§4. The Reduction and the Two Forms of Evidence for the Other

According to the above, behavior can point to the existence of the Other only

when placed in a shared and ontologically defining world of pre-given senses. Insofar as

it is presupposed, this context cannot, itself, be established by the evidence of behavior.

Thus, our first chapter related the difficulties which arise when we take behavioral

evidence as establishing both the presence of a world of shared senses and the presence

of the Other. In such a case, this evidence cannot avail itself of the premise of the

sharing of senses. If it did, it would violate the epoché. It would assume part of what it

was attempting to establish. Now, such a violation actually does arise in the arguments

of the Cartesian Meditations. It arises because its arguments attempt to use behavioral

evidence as their sole foundation and because, in fact, the evidential quality of behavior

rests on the assumption of a world of shared senses. As a result, we have the above

described circularity of reasoning where this assumption functions as an unrecognized

premise for evaluating the behavioral evidence which is, then, taken as establishing this

very premise (See above, ). To break this circle, this premise must be recognized as

such. It must, in other words, be seen as something requiring its own evidence. Once we

admit this, we can say that our verification of the presence of the Other rests, indeed, on

behavioral evidence. But we also admit that the evaluation of this evidence requires a

prior premise -- one which demands its own mode of evidence for its verification.

The nature of our access to this evidence follows from our last remarks. Since

the presence of a world of shared senses is prior to the analysis of behavior, its evidence

cannot be drawn from the latter. It must be drawn from what is prior to my apprehension

of my putative Others and their activities. It, thus, requires the suspension of the thesis

of the objective, intersubjectively valid world and, with this, a reduction to what exists

prior to this. Now, the true nature of this reduction can be given by recalling our
 Notes
246

assertion that the world, with its Others, is not something given to the individual ego as if

this ego could exist apart from this world. For the mature Husserl, self, Others and the

world in which they live are all co-grounded phenomena. The reduction to what is prior

to Others, thus, goes beyond my primordial sphere, understood as something private. It

goes to the ground of the private or personal.

Understood as providing the evidence for the premise, the reduction has a

twofold character. It is, first of all, a reduction to the ground of sense -- i.e., to the

original giving of the senses which we experience as pre-given. Secondly, it is a

reduction to the ground of the individuals who are given such senses and, with this, their

being as centers. Both characteristics are encompassed in the notion of the reduction as a

suspension in thought of the connections between experiences. The objective senses of

the world are given through such connections. As we recall, for an object to be

intentionally present to a subject is for it to manifest itself as a perceptually embodied

sense. Its presence is that of a unity within the multiplicities of experience, one which is

established -- or given -- by the synthetic connections of experience. Since subjects are

themselves defined in their individuality by such senses, the same point holds, mutatis

mutandis, for them. A subject is an experiential center of a spatial-temporal surrounding

world. Therefore, the constitution of the sense of this world through the perspectival

connections of experience is, simultaneously, the constitution of the experiencing

individual. We can also say that individuals are distinguished, one from the other, by

their possessing different "here's" and, if they are not contemporaries, by their possessing

different "nows." Both the "here" and the "now" receive their individual content from

the context of a surrounding world, considered as extended in space and time. The

suspension of the connections which yield a surrounding world is, then, not just a

suspension of the "giving" which results in an individual, but also a suspension of what

results in the distinction between different individuals. Thus, in proceeding to the ground
 Notes
247

which, in "giving" sense, is prior to sense, I also proceed to a level prior to the distinction

between myself and Others.

The evidence provided by the reduction should now be apparent. It is evidence

for the fact that both sense and self are co-grounded. There is, in other words, a common

root to the senses, whose sharing defines an intersubjective community, and the distinct

Others (or "selves") who share such senses. This conclusion, we may observe, is the

same as the one reached through the analysis of the horizonality of experience. The

world horizon cannot be grounded by self and Others since they are co-grounded

correlatives of this horizon. The perspectival connections of experience yield, we

claimed, both the sense of the world in its horizonal, infinite quality and, correlatively,

the subjects who, as finite, perspectivally experiencing centers, apprehend the world

horizonally. Putting this in terms of the reduction, we can say that our sharing in the

senses of the world is our sharing in the individual, subjective existence which is the

correlative to such senses. The original sharing is one of the ground of sense which is

also the ground of our individual, finite subjectivity. Considered apart from that which it

grounds, what we share in on this original level is not the constituted sense of the world

and, hence, not the constituted, worldly distinction between self and Others. We can,

thus, say with Husserl, that the evidence yielded by the reduction is that for "my

'coincidence' with Others on the original level of constitution, my coincidence, so to

speak, before there is constituted a world for myself and Others ..." (Ms. C 17 V, p. 30,

1931, italics added).

The evidence for this prior coincidence is precisely what is required to establish

our present sharing of senses. If I am in coincidence with Others on the "original

level" where such senses are first constituted, then, they cannot be considered my

idiosyncratic products. They must, in other words, be taken as common or "typical"

for each of the subjects who arises from this original coincidence. This follows
 Notes
248

analytically from the fact that subjects do not, as individuals, pre-exist these senses;

they, therefore, cannot be considered as their individual authors. Thus, to repeat what

we earlier said in this regard, distinct individuals cannot be considered as "creators" of

the world's senses. To consider myself as such a creator is only "to acknowledge my

essential coincidence with the absolute". The reduction, we are claiming, is what

provides the evidence for this coincidence.

The character of this evidence is determined in advance by the character of the

reduction. The latter is a move from the constituted to the constituting. Given that

otherness of being is a constituted phenomenon, the reduction proceeds from otherness to

identity. This identity is a feature of the constituting level. This signifies that when we

apply the reduction to a plurality of worldly, constituting subjects, it necessarily exhibits

it as what will become a co-constituting plurality. We can also say that it reveals posited,

subjective otherness as an otherness which preserves, on the constituting level, an

original intersubjective identity. Within the individual, this original identity continues to

manifest itself in the occurrence of passive synthesis. Such synthesis, as pertaining to the

"pre-egological level," cannot be conceived as a function of an individually acting

subject. Rather, it constantly establishes this subject's being. Now, as pointing to the

pre-egological, the evidence of the reduction can never count as evidence for the

individually existing Other. Its terminus ad quem is not the individual, but rather the

identity or "coincidence" of subjects which exists before the constitution of otherness. If

we do wish to evidentially validate the actually existing Other, we must turn to the

constituted level on which such otherness is given. This is implicit in our seeking the

required evidence from the observation of the Other's behavior. Insofar as this behavior

is that of an individual subject acting within the world, the evidence is drawn from the

level on which there already exists a constituted world with its ontological distinction of

self and non-self and, with this, self and Others. In directing itself to the level "before
 Notes
249

there is constituted a world for myself and Others," the reduction, thus, provides, not

behavioral evidence, but the evidence for the premise required for its evaluation. The

essential character of the latter is its limitation. Directing itself to the original

coincidence of subjects and to the sharing of senses which this implies, it corresponds to

the demand that the latter be recognized as a premise requiring its own unique evidence.

Its limited character, in other words, is just what is required when we assert that the

evidence for the sharing of senses cannot have the same source as that for the actually

existent Other. The reduction, then, is what prevents us from violating the epoché.

§5. Recognition and the Self-Otherness of the Absolute

Let us turn to another facet of the evidence for the premise. We can do so by

recalling what we termed the "second, intersubjective sense" of transcendence. As we

quoted David carr, the object, considered as transcendent in this sense, "is not reducible

to all possible acts of mine ..." The world of such transcendent objects bears,

correspondingly, a sense which surpasses the experiential possibilities springing from

my acts. This is because its second, intersubjective sense involves the notion of the

actualilty of other experiencers. They are considered as simultaneous with me and yet

as experiencing the object from different points of view. Each experiences the object

from a "here" which is distinct from my own and which I have no possibility of

simultaneously occupying along with my own "here." My inability to take up both my

"here" and what for me is the Other's "there" points, of course, to the fact that my own

"here" with its surrounding world is a condition for my existence as an individual

experiencer.

Let us put this together with the notion of Others being implicit in me. On one

level, this sense is simply that of their being "fellow validators-bearers" of the world.

They are what gives the world this second, intersubjective sense of its transcendence.
 Notes
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They are implicit in me insofar as I possess this sense. Here, I assert that my being as a

center of worldly experience requires Others in order that this experience achieve its

sense of implying more than the possibilities which spring from my acts. As our last

chapter indicated, this notion of implicitness has a certain concealing character. It is

correct on the level which sees the intersubjective plurality as grounding the being and

the sense of the world I experience. It is incorrect insofar as it asserts that this level is

ultimate. In other words, its insistence on one constitutive level conceals the existence of

a prior level. Once we break through this concealment, a second sense of the

implicitness of Others emerges. I do not see my fellow subjects as grounding with me

our common world. I rather understand us, collectively, as correlates of the

perspectivally unfolding, horizonally structured sense of this world. If the world and its

subjects are co-grounded, then their implicitness in me becomes, on this new level, our

implicitness in our common ground. Now, as we indicated, the thought of Others as

surpassing me is inherent in the second, intersubjective sense of the world's

transcendence. When I take this together with the thought of our common grounding, the

following conclusion emerges. As implicitly containing Others whose experiential

possibilities transcend my own, the ground, itself, must exhibit such transcendence. This

does not mean that it has to contain existent Others as actual individuals. It must,

however, "pre-contain" them in a manner of a ground. In other words, the ground, as a

premise for recognizing actual Others, must imply possibilities surpassing my own,

possibilities which I, in my embodied finitude, am in no position to realize.

Our last chapter showed that this view of the ground is precisely what the

reduction reveals. Indeed, the very possibility of performing the reduction is tied to the

fact that it reveals a ground which surpasses me, i.e., surpasses the limited possibilities

which my acts embody. Admitting this, we can qualify the assertion of our last section.

We said that the move from the constituted to the constituting exhibits an underlying
 Notes
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intersubjective identity. On the level of what is ultimately constituting, subjects are in an

essential coincidence. Now, such coincidence should not be taken as implying a simple

unison of constitutive systems. The preservation of an underlying identity within the

otherness of individual subjects never implies that each subject reduplicates the

constitutive processes of his fellows. Such a conception makes impossible the

recognition that is essential if we are to admit the existence of an Other who is truly

other: namely, the recognition that the world which appears from the "there" of his

standpoint -- though constitutively similar to my world in the "here" -- is not identical to

it. What underlies this recognition is, we assert, the absolute's surpassing quality.

Insofar as it presents possibilities which I am in no "position" to realize, my coincidence

with the absolute -- and, hence, with Others -- is always my coincidence with something

greater than myself. To put this somewhat paradoxically, we can say that I am always

more than myself when I am regarded in my identity with my ground. The self that is

considered identical with the ground surpasses the self which I can grasp on the level of

my objectified finitude. Given this, the objective manifestation of the ground in a

plurality results in selves which manifest not just an identity of constitutive systems, but

also the otherness which makes their relation a harmony as opposed to a mere unison.

The nature of this Otherness can be indicated by recalling our remarks about

contingency. The ultimate root of subjective otherness is, we claim, the ground's

surpassing quality; but the same quality is at the basis of contingency. Because the

ground contains more possibilities than a finite subject can actualize, what he will

actualize cannot be known. As we cited Husserl, before the fact, "everything is

concealed ... even one's own human being, one's own bodilyness, one's own being as an

ego ..." (Ms. A V 10, p. 22, Nov. 9, 1931). This means that a subject cannot make

unconditioned assertions about these facets of his being for himself. His theses about his

being are contingent on what he would experience were he to go further in his horizonal
 Notes
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explication. His horizons are understood as having an "open" character -- i.e., as not

determining in advance the theses which they will confirm. Now, for Husserl, this

openness results from the ground's surpassing quality in two ways. On the one hand, as

involving more possibilities than the subject can ever realize, it necessarily objectifies

itself in a subject whose experiences point to possibilities beyond those which are

exemplified in his present theses. On the other hand, the ground surpasses the individual

subject through its own self-sufficiency. It is not determined in advance to produce a

given individual, which means that this individual is a contingent rather than a necessary

result of the ground's self-objectification. Thus, not just my theses with regard to the

nature of my being, but also my theses concerning the fact of my being are considered as

contingent. So conceived, the thought of my contingency requires a double perspective.

It requires that I view my given finitude along with the infinitude of my ground. I am a

particular subject with finite characteristics; but I am always more than this when I am

associated with my ground. In terms of the possibilities which the ground seems to offer

me, I am, in other words, always more than the self which I can objectively grasp. The

dual root of my contingency is, then: 1) the fact that on my constituting level -- the level

which results in what I experience as constituted objectifications -- I am, myself, in

coincidence with my ground and 2) the fact that, in itself, this ground has a surpassing

openness and independence of all that it constitutes.

To move from this conception of my contingency to the otherness of the Other,

we must first observe that contingency, when viewed from the perspective of the

openness and independence of the ground, is a feature of what is possible rather than

necessary. This means that to regard something as contingent is to regard it as that which

could have been otherwise or, indeed, through its lack of inherent necessity, could not

have been at all. We essentially say the same thing when we assert that a contingent

individual's status is one of being a "this" rather than a "that." As contingent, its thought
 Notes
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as a "this" always includes the notion of a "rather than." Hence, its notion as a

contingent "this" implies the possibility of a "that," the possibility of something which,

by definition, is other than itself. Applying this to the thought of my own contingent

being as "this" subject, I can, then, assert that implicit in the recognition of my contingent

status is the thought of another contingent subject. The latter is not simply a

reduplication. Rather, in its status as a "that," it surpasses the specific possibilities

objectified in my "this." To take an example, the acknowledged contingency of my

being here implies that I could have been there. Instead of my existing here, I

acknowledge that I could have existed there with a different surrounding world defining

me. Given that I cannot simultaneously both be here and there, the thought implicit in

this acknowledgement is actually one of an alter ego. It is of an ego who surpasses my

possibilitites in his presently being there while I am here. Now, the nature of this

thought, which is an implicit recognition, should be clear from its premise. This is the

aforementioned coincidence of myself with the openness and independence of my

"absolute" ground. The thought of my contingency is actually the thought of my

coincidence with a ground which is always more than myself. Thus, the implication of

the Other in my contingency is just the thought of his being implicit in the absolute

which exists as my ground. As Husserl describes the latter, "It is precisely the

absolute, ... lying at the basis of all possibilities, all relativities, all contingencies, which

gives them their sense and being" (Ms. C I, KSept. 21-22, 1934, HA XV, Kern ed., p.

668). The absolute, then, underlies the possibilities of both the "this" and the "that." I, in

my contingency, imply the possibility of Others -- i.e., subjects who are other than the

"this" of my objectified possibility -- when my contingency is thought of in terms of my

pre-objective coincidence with this surpassing ground.

The words "objective" and "pre-objective" should recall the duality of the

evidence for the Other. The inference from my contingency does not amount to a
 Notes
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recognition of the Other as a distinct, objectively existing individual. For this, I require

the perceptual evidence of the Other as he acts in an already constituted, objective world.

In such a world, otherness -- the distinction of being from being -- is already given. My

verificational process assumes this in attempting, through the analysis of behavior, to

establish a certain type of otherness -- viz., that of an embodied subject. From my

contingency, I have only the inference of the Other as implicit in my pre-objective

ground. Such an Other is both in coincidence with me and implicitly other than me. He

is in coincidence with me since, on the ultimately constituting level, distinct individual

beings have not yet been constituted. He is implicitly other since this level of our

coincidence always represents more than myself when I take myself as an objectified

possibility present in the world. Otherness, here, simply points to another facet of the

evidence of the reduction. As exhibiting the absolute as the totality of all possibilities,

the reduction always shows it as other than my limited, worldly possibility. It shows that

the absolute can manifest itself in the self-otherness which is objectively present in a

plurality of subjects.

§6. Self-Transcendence and Self-Pluralization: a Logical Analysis

According to the above, the individual can be called self-transcendent.

Associated with his ground, he always transcends or surpasses himself. This surpassing

points to Others and indicates the connection between his self-transcendence and the self-

pluralization of the absolute. If we do admit our self-transcendence, we can answer the

question: "Why many?" -- i.e., why, in Husserl's view, there must be a plurality of

individual subjects. In a certain sense, the answer is logical. It follows from a mere

analysis of the terms which Husserl employs in his doctrines of contingency, solipsism,

facticity and the reduction. All of these teachings imply the notion of self-transcendence;

and this notion can be used in connection with them to show the logical necessity for
 Notes
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Others. In drawing out this necessity, we need not merely conclude that the absolute can

manifest itself in a plurality. Having manifested itself in me, an individual subject, it

must manifest itself in Others. Here, indeed, we can say that my actuality, taken as its

particular manifestation, implies the actuality of other such manifestations. This means

that such Others are "logically" implicit in me because my actuality implies their

actuality.

The logical moves by which we can draw out these implications do not, of

course, phenomenologically justify them. Such justification comes from the

phenomenological examination of the terms we shall be manipulating. What our logical

analysis indicates is simply the nexus of Husserl's various doctrines. It shows how the

meanings of their terms forces him to conclude that there cannot be a solitary, actually

existent subject.

Let us begin by observing the consequences which arise when we deny the

essential element of our self-transcendence -- that of the transcendent or supassing

quality of our ground. To assert this quality is, as we said, to affirm that the otherness of

Others is potentially present in this ground. The two are equivalent which means that the

denial of the ground's surpassing quality is a denial of this otherness. Now, such a denial

brings with it a denial of my contingency. I refuse to admit that, by virtue of my ground,

I am expressive of a "this" rather than a "that," e.g., a subjective "here" implying the

possibility of a subjective "there" at the same time. Otherwise expressed, I assert that

my being as a "this" and a "here" is essentially necessary and not something

acknowledged as contingent. All of this follows since to disallow the ground's

surpassing quality is to deny its otherness from myself, i.e., from the "this" of my

objectified possibility. It is to assert, in other words, that the absolute ground contains

only the possibility of my "this" -- i.e., the possibility which is actualized in my

subjectivity with its correlative surrounding world.

 Notes
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This assertion immediately undercuts the dual root of my contingency. When I

assume the total possibilities of the ground are exhausted in what I can objectively

ascertain with regard to myself, such possibilities cannot be said to display an openness

or independence with regard to myself. My possibilities are the only conceivable ones,

which signifies that, in regarding myself in my coincidence with the ground, I do not

apprehend myself in terms of the surpassing openness of my experiential horizon. The

possibilities afforded by my future explication of this horizon are not independent of

what I have already exhibited. This horizon does, of course, remain perspectivally

structured; but, here, I must deny what we earlier asserted. I have to say that

presumptiveness is not inherent in my positing through a perspectival series. The series

simply repeats and reconfirms what I have established. Thus, all of my present theses --

including those of my being for myself -- are securely established; contingency and

presumptiveness entirely fall away.

Here, since the possibilities expressed by myself and my ground are equivalent, I

become identified with my ground. The definition of one, in terms of its essential

elements, is also the definition of the other. In this case, to speak of the independence

of my ground is to speak of my own independence. I cannot assert that the ground is

independent of my being as its objectified expression. My existence directly implies

the existence of the ground as it is the only possibility contained within it. As for the

ground, its existence necessarily implies my existence as a self. As expressing only my

possibilities, the synthetic connections it forms between its elements are determined in

advance to produce me. Thus, ground and self are, here, collapsed into one. The

"alphabet" of experiences can only "write" one world with one central subject. It is no

longer really an alphabet, i.e., something whose elements are independent insofar as

they can be arranged to express many possible subjects.

 Notes
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The transcendental solipsism implicit in this is a second consequence of our

original denial. If, indeed, there is only the possibility of my subjectivity, I at once

become a solus ipse. Others, if I posit them, are simply reduplications of my original

possibility. Husserl writes that to posit another ego as genuinely other, one must be able

to assert that the ego can form new types of intentionalities "... whereby it completely

and totally transcends its own being" (CM, Strasser ed., p. 135). This is not an assertion

I can make in denying my contingency. As exemplifying in my "this" the only possible

self, I must, rather, admit that "... all my modes of consciousness belong to the circle of

those which are modes of my self-consciousness" (Ibid., italics added). The posited

Other, then, becomes nothing more than my product. He becomes "a point of

intersection in my constitutive synthesis," one which refers back to me, i.e., to my

individual possibilities of constituting my world with my Others. Such Others cannot be

genuinely other -- i.e., Others who can surpass me.

This second consequence rests on the equivalence of my ground surpassing me

and Others, who share my ground, also surpassing me. The equivalence signifies that the

denial of the one is also a denial of the other. I cannot, then, deny my self-transcendence

without also denying the transcendence of the Other. Now, the denial of my self-

transcendence brings about a third consequence. It implies that, along with my

contingency and my being with Others, I must also refuse to admit the ultimacy of

facticity. I cannot, in other words, accept the position that the factual course of

experiences unconditionally determines both myself and my world. If I did, then I would

have to deny that there is an a priori of perception. But I must accept this a priori once I

limit my ground to expressing only the possibilities of my subject and its surrounding

world. If the ground is determined in advance to objectify itself in one specific world,

then the perceptual form of this world is also determined in advance. The ordering form

of the experiential connections which yield the world's perceptual presence must be seen
 Notes
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as a pre-determined, a priori form. The same point follows from the statement that my

equivalence with my ground signifies that the synthetic connections between the ground's

elements are determined in advance to produce me. As such, they are also determined to

produce the perceptual world whose experience situates and defines me as a self.

Granting this, we must admit that the factual givenness of experience is not ultimately

determining since it is, itself, predetermined to produce my unique possibility. A fourth

consequence can be drawn from the tie between the ultimacy of facticity and the

performance of the reduction. Since the latter depends upon our admitting the former,

our original denial can be shown to deny the very possibility of the reduction. To put

this more directly, we need only recall that the reduction's possibility depends upon its

revealing a ground that surpasses me. The denial of this surpassing, thus, immediately

implies the reduction's impossibility.

If a denial implies denial, then this implication can always be reversed by

substituting in the corresponding affirmations. Thus, if the denial of the surpassing

quality of my ground results in the denials of the ultimacy of facticity and the possibility

of the reduction, the affirmation of the latter can be said to imply the affirmation of the

first. Husserl's positions on facticity and the reduction, thus, both imply the surpassing

quality of my ground. Now, my ground's supassing me implies that the Others, who

share this ground, also surpass me. Accordingly, granting that the reduction is possible,

we must say that this ground contains more than my objectified possibility. It includes

the corresponding possibilities of genuine Others. With this, we can explicitly affirm the

connection we mentioned at the beginning of this section. We can assert that the

absolute's self-objectification cannot be essentially tied to objectification in a single

subject. Only a plurality could make it objective since, by its very nature, it implies

more than one.

 Notes
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The same point follows when we reverse the implication which led to the denial

of contingency. If this denial follows from the denial of my ground surpassing me, then

it is equally true that the acknowledgement of my contingency -- i.e., of my being a

"this" rather than a "that" -- implies my ground's surpassing quality. It implies it as

containing both the "this" and the "that." Here, with Husserl, we think of the absolute

ground as lying at the basis of all possibilities, all contingencies. We think of it as

containing the possibilities of Others who supplement, in their "that," my finite

possibilities as a "this." Once again, the objectification of the absolute involves a

plurality. To limit it to a single subjective objectification is to deny the surpassing

quality which my contingency implies in its regard. Limited to one possibility, it could

not be conceived as the totality of different possibilities. Rather than having the essential

indeterminacy which characterizes it as an alphabet, it would, as we said, be understood

as pre-determined. It would be determined to produce the one individual being whose

existence would be equivalent to its own. The result of this limitation would necessarily

be a transformation of its own nature. Identified with its single objective expression, it

would, itself, be regarded as something individually singular. As for the objective

expression, its own nature would be transformed since it would have to be considered as

necessary rather than contingent. Such necessity, we noted, would be that of my own

self-given existence. Thus, once I admit the contingency of my existence, I reverse this

implication. I affirm that the absolute, in its own nature, can never be limited to just one

objectification. Insofar as he is such an objectification, a contingent subject, therefore,

can never occur alone. The implication of the "that" in the "this" becomes, on other

words, Husserl's affirmation that "a possible ego immediately implies a universe, a

totality of egos coexisting with it" (Ms. E III 9, HA XV, Kern ed., p. 383, Nov. 5, 1931).

It must imply this totality since, as grounded by the absolute, it is only possible as

contingent; but, as we just said, such a contingent subject cannot occur alone.
 Notes
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This inference can be reformulated so that it explicitly leads to the actuality (as

opposed to the mere possibility) of Others. To do so, let us list its necessary premises.

The first is that the absolute is regarded as the necessary and sufficient ground of

individuals. This allows us to say that the actuality of its constitutive results directly

implies its own actuality. My actuality as a contingent individual, thus, implies the

actuality of my surpassing ground. The second is that this ground can, itself, be active

only as grounding a number of individuals. In its own nature, it is pre-objective and pre-

individual. To limit its action to a single result is, as we stressed, to transform its nature.

It can no longer be regarded as an "alphabet" which is actual -- i.e., acts as an alphabet --

by virtue of its spelling different words. An alphabet determined in advance to spell just

one word is simply that word. Another way of putting this is to observe that the

inference demands that we apply the reversal of the Seinsrede to the action of the ground.

If we fail to do this, then we conceive this action as arising from an individually singular

agent. From the determinateness of this agent, we infer that it could ground just one

determinate result. To reverse this, the result, which is understood as springing from a

non-determinate, pre-singular ground, cannot have this solitary quality. Now, if my

actuality implies that of my ground, and its actuality implies its grounding more subjects

than myself, we have our inference from my actuality to that of Others.

This inference, however, does not imply the fact of my actually recognizing

these Others. For this, I require the evidence of their behavior. Here, however, the focus

is on my contingency. This contingency includes the possibility that I shall never

encounter most of my Others. With this, we may state another element in the above

inference. It is that this contingency represents, on the level of the plurality of the

grounded, the nature of the absolute ground. The latter is the totality of possibilities.

The contingent subject implies, in his contingency, Others as "compossibles" -- i.e.,

subjects whose possibilities supplement his own. In Husserl's scheme of ground and
 Notes
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grounded, the "open" plurality of subjects, thus, becomes the objective manifestation of

the all-encompassing ground. Each subject, in its contingent givenness, implies other

subjects and, at the same time, declares that its own inherent necessity is no greater than

theirs. The openness of possibility, as we quoted Husserl, remains openness. There is no

inference here to the necessity of Others, though their necessity is the same as my own.

None of us has an absolute, unconditioned necessity.

This discussion can serve as an interpretive context for Husserl's remarks on the

eidos of the ego. He writes:

Every example of an ego, [be it taken] as actual or possible, presents the same eidos. But
this eidos has the remarkable property that each of its eidetic singularities yields (as a
possibility) an individual, transcendental ego. This is an ego which intentionally implies
a universe of transcendental egos as a compossible possibility -- i.e., as a universe of
possibilities that, indeed, are eidetic singularities of the eidos, transcendental ego -- but
implies it as well as the universe of necessarily co-existing "Others" in the sense that the
setting up of each ego as existing must be in accord with this universe of existing egos.
The possibility of one eidetic singularity [understood] as an ego is, at the same time, the
possibility of a co-existing universe of Others pertaining to this ego (Ms. E III 9,
Intersubj. III, Kern ed., p. 383, Nov. 5, 1931).

These remarks can be understood as a consequence of our taking the eidos of the ego as

the eidos of a "self," this being understood as the objective expression of the ground of

egological being. Since this ground includes the totality of the possibilities for such a

self, the eidos has this totality for its content. Its notion, in other words, is that of a

universe of selves or transcendental egos, all of which are "compossible" in the ground.

Each "eidetic singularity [understood] as an ego" represents one finite possibility, one

determinate, objectified expression of this universe of possibilities. Yet it implies all the

others pertaining to it, once we exhibit its eidos.

 Notes
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The exhibition of this eidos occurs through the process of free variation. This is

a process which varies in imagination the features which are given in our original, factual

example. If this process is to continue to result in a positable ego, the variation must be

of contingent features. Features necessary for egological existence cannot be varied

without abandoning the notion of this existence. Thus, imagination varies such things as

the "here" of an ego, transforming it to a possible "there." It only varies the notion of the

ego existing as a center of some given surrounding world to show that this is not

similarly transformable. Granting that exhibition of the eidos displays both the

contingent and the necessary, we can say that, in displaying the former, it does exhibit

"the possibility of a co-existing universe of Others pertaining to this ego" -- i.e., the ego

of our originally given, factual example. This universe is simply an expression of the

supplementing possibilities of the "that" which the original egological "this" implies in its

contingency. Our position in this regard is expressed by Husserl's remark "...

contingency implies in itself (in sich schliesst) a horizon of possibilities in which the

contingent itself specifies one of the possibilities, precisely the one which has actually

occurred" (Ms. C I, Sept. 21-22, 1934, HA XV, Kern ed., p. 668-9). The context of this

remark is, we may recall, the description of the absolute. It is in terms of this context

that we must widen the notion of the eidos. Originally, it was understood as including

only the necessary, non-transformable features of its original example. In relating the

eidos of the ego to the surpassing quality of its absolute ground, we broaden its notion to

include both the contingent and the necessary.

§7. Contingency and the Formation of Transcending Intentions

Our last few sections have linked the premise for our recognizing Others to the

notion of contingency. When we analyze the Other's behavior, we presuppose a harmony

of the meanings which we gather from the world. Taking such meanings as constituted
 Notes
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through the connections of experience, our premise is that of a harmony of our

constitutive systems. Now, a harmony is not a unison. It involves both identity and

difference. The identity of our constituting systems was traced by us to the fact that we

are not the independent authors of those most basic meanings which give each of us a

surrounding world. Because we are dependent on such a world -- because we are

contingent upon its givenness -- we are not capable of breaking the passive basis for this

harmony. Contingency, here, points to the level of our pre-egological identity; it

indicates the pre-individual coincidence of the constitutive systems which result in each

subject with his surrounding world. The distinction between subjects can also be traced

to the notion of contingency. My contingency implies my Others in the sense of

implying Other possibilities of taking up a standpoint and acting in the world. As we

cited Husserl in our last section, "... contingency implies in itself a horizon of

possibilities ..." My "this" in its contingency implies the thought of the "that." It implies

the horizon of possibilities taken as alternatives to my given "this." Such alternatives are

not examples of simple otherness. They are linked by being variations on a common

theme -- that of a surrounding world with its subjective center. Insofar as subjects are

contingent on the givenness of a surrounding world, they must be thought of as variations

of the original identity which springs from the pre-egological level. This is the identity

of those constitutive systems which must be given if the basic features of a surrounding

world are to be given. Contingency, then, points to the theme of subjective existence and

to its variations.

Having linked our premises to contingency, we may ask what the independent

evidence is for the latter. As we recall, the premise for analyzing the behavior of Others

cannot be established by regarding such behavior. It must have its own source of

evidence. The same can be said for the notion of my contingency. It cannot imply a

horizon of possibilities by virtue of my comparing my "this" with the possibilities I see

 Notes
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exemplified in the "that" of Others. If it did, then the notion would already assume the

presence of Others and could not be used as a premise for such presence. In other words,

if it assumes their presence, it would not "in itself" imply a horizon of possibilities -- i.e.,

the possibilities pointing to Others which I must presuppose if I am to verify their

presence through behavior. Such verification can only occur if the Other's behavior

agrees with a possibility which is given before I encounter his behavior. This possibility

is not that of my "this," for then it would not point to the Other. Yet, if it is to be prior to

my encounter with the Other, my "this" must already include it "in itself."

We earlier remarked that the reduction provides, not behavioral evidence, but

rather the evidence for the premise required to evaluate behavior. It is what prevents us

from violating the epoché by committing a principio principii. The same point applies

here. My "this," in its contingency, can imply "in itself" the "that" of my Others only if I

perform the reduction. The latter is a suspension of the objectively existing world and,

hence, of the Others present in this world. It provides the evidence that the stream of

experiences which forms my "life" -- i.e., my being as a center of experience -- is

independent of my activity. My dependence on the stream signifies that I am not self-

grounding, that I do not have the unconditioned, "ground-less" being which Husserl

ascribes to the absolute. Thus, I cannot, as dependent, be considered to independently

constitute my being as a pure and personal ego, i.e., as a "central" observer and actor.

The implication springing from the passive constitution of my life is, then, that my being

is not my product. In terms of what I can accomplish and constitute, it remains a

presupposed given. It is other than the being which arises from my constitutive activity.

This otherness of what I am given and what I can constitute is, in fact, my contingency.

It makes all my accomplishments -- all my standpoints and corresponding modes of

behavior -- contingent on that which is not in my power.

 Notes
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We can express this in terms of Kern's remarks quoted above. Husserl's position,

this author writes, is that "transcendental subjectivity is not the sufficient ground for the

being of the world." This follows because the reduction shows that it is not the sufficient

ground of its own egological being -- i.e., the being from which it constitutes both the

world and itself as objectively real within the world. This signifies that both are in

"danger" of "collapse" (Husserl u. Kant, ed. cit., p. 298). The resulting contingency is

that of being capable of existence and non-existence. It is that of lacking any inherent

necessity to be. It is at this point that the features which I experience in myself and my

surrounding world show themselves as possible -- as opposed to necessary -- results of

that alphabet of experiences which is the final terminus of the reduction of my "this."

Such features imply, in terms of this alphabet, other possibilities. At the basis of my

contingency is, then, my exhibited self-otherness. The self that I make through my

action is not the self lying at the basis of my action. Only if my being were within my

power, only if I could be considered to be self-grounded, could I, in my "this," claim a

necessary and not just a contingent status.

Such self-otherness is, of course, just another expression of the self-

transcendence defined above. It is the transcendence of the ground of my being from

myself. Now, this transcendence of the ground from myself is, we said, also the

transcendence of Others who share this ground. To express this in terms of the evidence

of the reduction, we can say that, admitting that my own being is not my product, I must

admit that that Other in his being is also not my product. I cannot constitute the Other

without making reference to my own self-constitution. My self-existence is, according to

Husserl, the primordial basis for my attempts to constitute the Other. It is that from

which I perform the "analogizing apperception." That such self-existence is not within

my powers shows that I lack the basis for an independent constitution of the Other. It

shows that egological being per se is beyond my self-sufficient constitutive powers.

 Notes
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With this, I reverse the implication I drew from the denial of my contingency. The

denial implied that I was the only possibility. It, thus, led to the conclusion that all that

was possible fell within my constitutive capabilities. Here, on the contrary, the

admission of my contingency is the admission that the Other cannot be my product. He

is understood as the Other whose subjective existence surpasses my constitutive

capabilities.

This surpassing points to the origin of those transcending intentions which are

directed to the Other. It shows how, prior to its encounter with the Other, "the ego, in

itself, has and can always form afresh such new types of intentionalities, intentionalities

with a sense of being (Seinssinn) whereby it completely and totally transcends its own

being (Sein)" (CM, Strasser ed., p. 135). The key to the formation of such intentions is

the equivalence between the ego's self-transcendence and the transcendence of his

Others. It is because the ego is inherently self-transcendent that it can, "in itself," form a

transcendent intention. Its self-transcendence is shown by the fact that its self-existence

(its being as an ego) is not in its power. Granting that egological being, per se, exceeds

its constitutive powers, its intention to the being of its Other must, from the start, be

counted as transcendent.

Let us express this in terms of our statement that the ego's self-transcendence is

the transcendence of the ground of its being. It is because it is not self-grounding that its

egological being is not in its power. It is not self-grounding because that out of which it

acts always transcends the results of its action. The results are finite while the ground is

infinite. The latter, thus, escapes any definitions as a finitely given "this." The most we

can say about it is that it is the indefinitely extendable horizon of the possibilities which

stand as alternatives to my given "this." Such possibilities, we assert, form the prior, pre-

given content of my transcending intentions. Since they are not exemplified in my

"this," they cannot be regarded as "modes" of my "self-consciousness." They are not

 Notes
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"points of intersection" in my "constitutive syntheses". They transcend these which

means that they are the elements of my intention to another subject with his self-

consciousness and constitutive syntheses. Since the ground of my being, out of which

they arise, is not in my power, neither is the subject which they point to.

This intended subject is, thus, transcendent to me. Yet, when I regard myself in

coincidence with my ground, he is also implicit in me. This follows since implicit in

my ground are the alternatives to my ways of being and acting. On the ultimately

constituting level, I must regard myself in my coincidence with my ground. But the

ground surpasses the self that I objectively am. Thus, implicit in me -- i.e., in my

ground -- is the very surpassing which points to the Other. To put this in terms of my

contingency, it can be recalled that the surpassing quality of my ground gives my "this"

the sense of something which "could have been otherwise". This means that my

intention to my "could have been otherwise" is, at bottom, my intention to my "that" --

i.e., to my Other -- who is implicit in the sense of my "this." Whenever I present my

"this" as contingent, I always tacitly appresent (or co-intend) its alternatives. It is

because of this that I "can always form afresh" the "new types of intentionalities"

which point beyond myself.

To sum up, the origin of the ego's transcending intentions is its underlying

coincidence with its ground. On the ultimately constituting level, there are always

present the elements of those intentions which point to more than the ego can

objectively manifest. As prior to both the ego's self-existence and the existence of his

Others, these intentions, in their elements, are simply factually given. The ego's sense

that this is so is both its sense of its factual contingency and its sense that Others can

exemplify the possibilities which it has foregone in becoming a factually given, finite

"this."
 Notes
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A later chapter will fill out the details of the above. For our present purposes,

we need only observe how it inherently involves the notion of an intersubjective

harmony. This harmony is implicit in the claim that a subject "in itself" -- prior to his

encounter with his Other -- can intend a fellow subject. Such intentions are inherent in

the individual because they spring from that out of which he acts so as to define himself

as a self. They spring from the point of his identity with his ground. Now, once we

grant with Husserl that subjects are in coincidence on the level of their ground, we have

the common origin of such transcending intentions. We also have the commonality of

their objects. The latter consists in the range of subjective possibilities which the

connections of experience can exemplify to form a centering environment. This range is

the horizon of alternatives to each individual subject. Thus, each subject is in harmony

with his Others insofar as the horizons of each overlap in the horizon (ultimately, the

"world-horizon") which is implicit in their common origin.

Let us put this in terms of the identity and difference of subjects. With regard to

the former, I can say that my intentions to Others are intentions to subjects who are like

me in having a common origin. This origin makes them intend more than they can

possibly exemplify. It, thus, situates them in a nexus of intentions which can only be

fulfilled (and this, never completely) in their encounters with each other. With regard to

difference, we can say that such encounters involve transcendence since each subject

exemplifies a possibility which is other than that of his fellow subjects in their objectified

finitude. This transcendence, however, is immanently grounded since these possibilities

are present at the common origin of each subject's action. The special nature of the

resulting harmony can be indicated by recalling the conclusion of our last chapter. It

asserted that the totality of subjects is itself contingent. This totality must be considered

self-transcendent in the sense that it cannot ground itself. This means that the

possibilities of being and behaving which subjects exemplify are never equivalent to
 Notes
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those of their ground. Admitting this, the harmony between subjects can never be

thought of as static. It involves an openness to possibilities which have not yet been

actualized. Inherent in its nature is both contingency and the possibility of newness.

To further pursue these themes, we must make a radical turn in our next chapter.

Thus far, our results have proceeded from considering experience apart from time. We

have suspended in thought the temporal ordering of experience in order to regard

Husserl's absolute as a non-temporal, static alphabet of experiences. Our consideration

of the ground of the intersubjective harmony has been limited to considering this aspect

of the absolute's presence. There is, however, another side. It is one which we touched

upon when we said that the subject was to be considered as a temporal center, i.e., as the

now-point of its temporal environment. This is the aspect which allows Husserl to say,

"The absolute is nothing other than absolute temporalization" (Ms. C I, Sept. 21-22,

1934; HA XV, Kern ed., p. 670). We grasp it when we perform a reduction parallel to

the above -- i.e., when we consider time apart from experience. Our focus on the

resulting "pure" temporal process is one which regards it as purified from all reference to

particular experiential contents. The absolute temporalization which comes into view

will allow us to restate the themes of our present chapter in a less formal, more intuitive

manner. Thus, we shall gain fresh insight into the distinction between the subject and his

ground which is also the distinction between the constituted and the ultimately

constituting. We shall also see Husserl's justification for his claim that on the level of his

ground, each subject is "in coincidence" with his Others. Since these themes provide the

context for regarding the subject as contingent, such contingency will receive a new

expression. Indeed, as our next chapter will show, temporality itself is the fourth and

most directly intuitable aspect of contingency.

 Notes
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CHAPTER V
THE TEMPORAL DIMENSION OF SUBJECTIVE LIFE

§1. The Duality of the Absolute

Our last chapter ended with a reference to time as an "aspect" of the absolute's

presence. In raising the issue of time, we find ourselves in a position similar to that

which Husserl expresses in the middle of Ideen I. He writes that

... time is a title for a completely self-contained sphere of problems, one of exceptional
difficulty. It will be seen that our previous presentation has, in a certain sense, been
silent on a whole dimension and, necessarily, had to be silent so as to maintain, free of
confusion, what first comes into view only through the phenomenological attitude and
what, apart from this new dimension, does form a self-consistent area of investigation.
The transcendental "absolute" which we have laid bare through the reductions is in truth
not the ultimate absolute. The former is something which in a certain profound and
completely unique sense constitutes itself and has its source in an ultimate and true
absolute (Ideen I, Biemel ed., pp. 197-98).

As the context of this passage makes clear, this "new dimension" is that of the

temporality of conscious life. Consciousness is not just the contents of experience, but

is also their ordering in time. In our focus on the former -- i.e., in our presentation of

the absolute as an "alphabet" -- we have by and large ignored the latter.

Several clarifications are necessary to understand Husserl's remark that the

"transcendental absolute" uncovered by the reductions is not something "ultimate." It

rather "constitutes itself" and, as such, "has its source in an ultimate and true absolute."

The first is that this "transcendental absolute" is not the alphabet of experiences per se.

Such an identification is ruled out by the remark that the transcendental absolute

"constitutes itself." Constitution is a matter of the connections between the elements of

 Notes
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the alphabet. It cannot apply to the alphabet per se since the latter is unered by

suspending these connections. What Husserl has in mind when he speaks of the

"transcendental absolute" is consciousness transcendetally understood as a flowing

stream of experiences. Up to this point, the Ideen has considered this as the constitutive

origin of the world. More precisely put, Hussel has thus far shown that the world, in its

presence or being, is dependent on the connections arising between the experiences of

consciousness as the latter streams in time. Now, if we ask why we can call this

streaming consciousness "absolute," we do come to the doctrine of the absolute as an

alphabet. As we recall, consciousness is entitled to be called "absolute" with regard to

the world insofar as the latter depends upon consciousness and insofar as consciousness,

itself, is independent of the world. Such independence signifies that consciousness is not

dependent on the connections which give us a world. Its ultimate presupposition is that

an experience has a being which is independent of the particular connections in which it

may be engaged. From this, indeed, we come to the doctrine of the absolute as a field of

separately regarded, independent experiences. This absolute is not, itself, consciousness

understood as engaged in constitution. It is rather, properly speaking, only an aspect of

it. It expresses a side or quality of constituting consciousness which allows Husserl to

consider the latter as independent and, hence, as absolute.

The remark that the "transcendental 'absolute' ... constitutes itself and has its

primal source in an ultimate and true absolute" points, in this context, to a second aspect

of consciousness, that of the dimension of time. This also expresses a quality which

allows us to consider consciousness as absolute. To see this, two things are required.

We must show that the presence of the world depends upon the temporal dimension of

consciousness. We must also show that this dimension, itself, is independent of the

presence of the world. The first follows as a matter of definition. The world achieves its
 Notes
272

presence through constitution; but such constitution is a temporal process. It is the

synthesis of our experiences in time. Without time, then, there is no world constitution.

To show the independence of time, we must consider it as the result of a

reduction. As we indicated in our last chapter, we can consider experience apart from

time. We can also consider time apart from experience. The first consideration occurs

through the "thought experiment" which involves our progressively stripping from our

experience all those connections which allow us to posit individual objects. We, thus,

bracket every consideration of the temporal positions of the contents composing an

objective experience. Here, the independence of such contents from their given

connections is their independence vis-a-vis their arrangement in a particular temporal

sequence. As is obvious, this independence of experiential content from definite

temporal positions is also an independence of the latter from the former. If content is

independent of time, then it also follows that the moments of time do not per se demand

to be filled with some particular experiential content. Thus, such moments can occur

even though the contents they bear are not such as to permit world constitution. In other

words, the givenness of time is independent of the presence of a constituted world. Its

moments can be given even though the contents they bear result simply in a "tumult" of

successive sensations.

With this, the temporal dimension of consciousness appears as an aspect of the

absolute. We can also say that, corresponding to the reduction to the absolute's presence

as an alphabet, we have the possibility of a second reduction, one to its presence as a pure

temporal process. The "purity" of the alphabet is its purity from all pre-determined

temporal ordering or connecting. The corresponding purity of the "absolute" temporal

process is its purity from all pre-determined experiential content. In general terms, the

conditions for the possibility of both reductions are the same. They begin with a

constituting consciousness which requires for its activity both content and time. To
 Notes
273

perform each reduction, we require the independence of its residuum -- be it content or

time -- from the determinate qualities of that which we bracket when we perform the

epoché. Given that we bracket either content or time and given that contents are

independent of their particular temporal ordering if and only if time is independent of the

particular contents it bears, these two possibilities of bracketing come down to the same

thing. Thus, in spite of what we just said, they do not really designate two separate

reductions. They are not, in fact, two separate ways of reducing the world to a tumult of

sensations. What they indicate is simply two possible interpretations of the reduction

conceived as a suspension of the relations between content and time, the relations which

permit world constitution. What they point to, then, is the duality of the aspects of the

ground of this constitution.

This duality does not mean that we are dealing with two concrete wholes. Our

focus is rather on two independent aspects of one and the same whole. To put this in

terms of an analogy, we note that color and figure manifest the same kind of

independence as content and time. We can conceive of color apart from figure insofar as

a particular color does not inherently demand a particular figure. The same point holds

in reverse order. This ability to separately consider color or figure does not mean that

they are independent wholes. Color is experienced as the color of some figure.

Similarly, figure cannot be distinguished from its background without its having some

color. The same relationship obtains between content and time. Contents are

experienced in terms of the temporally flowing, experiential stream. The latter is

experienced as a flowing of contents. This holds even though a particular content does

not inherently demand a particular temporal position or vice versa.

The mutual dependence of color and figure can be indicated by saying that each

demands and is, in some sense, founded on a third quality, that of extension. Extension,

itself, is capable of exhibiting all possible colors and shapes. In this as well as in its
 Notes
274

independence of any particular color or shape, it stands as their grounding possibility.

Color and figure are, we can say, "aspects" of extension. The same point can be made,

mutatis mutandis, for content and time. Each, considered separately by means of the

reduction, represents an aspect of one and the same quality -- that of the absolute's being

the grounding possibility of all possible synthetic formations. The alphabet of contents is

an aspect of this feature insofar as it exists independently of any particular temporal

ordering. Contents have the possibility of being arranged in every possible temporal

ordering. To reverse this, we note that when we abstractly regard the pure temporal

process, we consider its moments as "containers" capable of holding every particular

experiential content. We, thus, can say that all experiential contents are possible with

regard to the moments of time, this being implicit in our asserting that all temporal

orderings are possible with regard to the alphabet of contents. Both possibilities come to

the same thing; or rather, they are aspects of one and the same thing. We are simply

regarding in different ways the absolute's quality of being the world's unconditioned

ground. It is the possibility of all the world's possibilities. Because of this, it can be

designated as uniquely singular. As we have stressed, unique singularity signifies not

having a beyond, not being one among many. The totality of possibilities does not admit

of any possibility beyond itself. It is, by definition, unique. Both time and content, in

their representation of aspects of this all-embracing possibility, thus, represent aspects of

what, in itself, is uniquely one.

§2. The Question of the "Place" of Absolute Temporalization

The last section asserted that temporality expressed a "side or quality of

constituting consciousness," one which allows us to consider it as independent of the

results of its activity. When we reflect upon this, we find a certain ambiguity which

we have encountered before (See above, ). What is the ultimate reference of this
 Notes
275

side or aspect which allows us to consider consciousness as absolute? The reduction

which reveals it begins necessarily with a particular constituting consciousness. We

perform the reduction on ourselves, each on his own individual consciousness. Such

consciousness, however, is not independent. The reduction shows its tie to its

surrounding, constituted world. The question, then, is where are we to locate this

aspect of constitution? Is its reference to the temporal dimension which I encounter in

my constituting life, or does it refer beyond this to a prior level?

Both interpretations can find support from passages drawn from Husserl's

manuscripts. In favor of the position that the absolute, considered as temporalization,

is radically pre-egological, we can turn to Husserl's statement:

The absolute is nothing other than absolute temporalization; and even its interpretation as
the absolute which I directly encounter as my stationary streaming primordiality is a
temporalization, a temporalization of this into something primally existing (zur
Urseienden). Therefore, the absolute totality of monads -- i.e., the primordiality of all
the monads (allmonadische Urtümlichkeit) -- only exists by virtue of temporalization
(Ms. C I, Sept. 22-23, 1934; HA XV, Kern ed., p. 670).

According to this passage, my "stationary streaming primordiality" is, itself, the result of

an absolute temporalization. The latter, in temporalizing my streaming, allows me to be

there as something "primally existing." Thus, my interpretation of the absolute

temporalization as something I encounter in myself -- i.e., in my primordiality --

presupposes this very temporalization. Without it, my primordial being as an ego would

not exist; which signifies that, in itself, this temporalization is an aspect of what is prior

to me. The same point can be drawn from a pair of earlier manuscripts. Husserl asserts

that "temporalization possesses its 'layers' ... the 'layers' beneath the ego (unterichliche

'Schichte') and the egological 'layers' (Ms. B II 9, p. 10, Oct.-Dec. 1931). In other words,
 Notes
276

first there is "the primal being, the inherently self-temporalizing absolute ... then the

primal being as [an] ego ..." (Ms. C 5, p. 14, 1931). The same point holds for the totality

of monads. If the primal being of each exists by virtue of a pre-egological

temporalization, then all the monads in their "primordiality" -- i.e., in their being as egos

-- have the same condition.

When we turn to Husserl's statements on the pre-individual unity of the absolute,

further support for this position can be found. In the manuscript we first cited, Husserl

focuses on "the primal modality of temporal co-existence," a modality which springs

from "a temporalization of the primally temporalizing primordialities." He writes in

this regard:

We can, therefore, speak of a single, stationary, primal aliveness (Lebendigkeit) -- that of

the primal present which is not a modality of time. We can speak of it as the aliveness of
the totality of monads. The absolute itself is this universal, primordial present. Within it
'lie' all time and world in every sense. Itself streaming, [it is] actuality taken in the strict
worldly sense of being "present" (Ms. C I, Sept. 22-23, 1934; HA XV, Kern ed., p. 668).

This primordial aliveness is, for Husserl, that by virtue of which individual subjects live

and function. As such, its unity must be thought of as prior to that of their individual

lives. The latter, as arising from it, must be considered as a constituted level of this pre-

individual aspect of the absolute. Thus, we read on the next page of the same

manuscript:

Everything is one -- the absolute in its unity: the unity of an absolute self-
temporalization, the absolute in its temporal modalities temporalizing itself in the
absolute stream, the "stationary aliveness" of the primal present, of the absolute in its
unity -- the unity of everything! -- which in itself temporalizes and has temporalized
 Notes
277
everything that is anything. Within this, the levels of the absolute: the absolute as an
absolute, "human" totality of monads (Ibid., second italics added).

The doctrine of the above passages seems obvious. If temporalization is prior to

the being of an individual ego, if, indeed, it results in this ego's "primal being," then it

cannot result from the functioning of the latter. This means that absolute temporalization

is an aspect of what is prior to me in the singularity of my functioning. Husserl,

however, seems to deny this conclusion when he writes: "I am the only one (das

Einzige). Whatever exists for me is my own from the singularity (Einzigkeit) in which I

function (Ms. C 2 1, p. 3, Aug., 1931). This statement must be understood as including

the existence of time. Indeed, from the very same manuscript which we quoted in

support of temporalization's pre-egological character, we read: "I am. It is from me that

time is constituted" (Ms. C I, HA XV, p. 667). Here, the individual subject seems to take

up the stance of the absolute. If he does, then presumably "all time and world" would

have to be found within him. In support of this conclusion, we may cite Husserl's

remarks about the "'human' temporalization" which occurs within the members of a

developing monadic community. He claims that "... actually implicit within their

individual living present (ihrer individuaellen lebendigen Gegenwart) is the world, the

human totality of monads, etc." (Ibid., p. 669).

This ambiguity with regard to the aspect of time points to a deeper ambiguity.

Time is an aspect of what, itself, is uniquely one. It is, we said, an aspect of unique

singularity of the absolute. When Husserl declares that "everything is one," his reference

is to a pre-egological unity. The "absolute 'human' totality of monads" is declared to be

one of "the levels of the absolute," a level which results from an original temporalization.

The inference, here, is that unique singularity pertains to this original level. Its "place" is

to be found in that "single, stationary, primordial aliveness" which is prior to the

 Notes
278

multiplicity of individual egos. We can, however, find passages asserting the opposite

conclusion. Thus, Husserl argues that each individual ego must affirm, " ... I am also

unique. I am not a numerical singular (numerisch Einer), a human being among others, a

one among many ..." Each subject, in regarding himself, finds "the non-numerical

singularity of the ego -- the ego simply, the primal pole, the primal source of the

streaming functioning ..." (Ms. B I 32, V, p. 19, Spring, 1934). This is because I am

given as the only center of experience which I can directly encounter. As such, I am the

only thing to which I can affix the title "I." In Husserl's words, "The I is absolutely

unique ... the Other is my Other and, as such, he is not 'I' ..." (Ms. B I 14, XI, p. 25, Sept.

1935). The same point follows when we regard the subject as the being to whom the

world is given. Here, the subject, in his own being given, stands "as a presupposition for

all presence" (Ibid.) This means, as Husserl earlier writes, "Everything which I discover

and can discover as existent presupposes my being. The certainty that it exists, or

possibly exists, is my certainty, etc." (Ms. B III 1, pp. 7-8, ca. Nov. 1, 1929). In other

words, my subjectivity, which I experience as the being to whom all other being is given,

stands as a unique presupposition for all further experience of givenness.

The same claims of uniqueness are made with regard to the notion of the ego as a

constituting center. If the ego is a unique presupposition for givenness or presence,

then, as a constituter of the same, it must also be unique. It must, in other words, take

itself as a uniquely singular ground of world constitution. Such a ground is, by

definition, not meaningfully multipliable. This signifies for Husserl:

In an absolute sense, this ego is the only one. It does not allow of being meaningfully
multiplied. Put more pointedly: it excludes this as senseless. The implication is: The
'surpassing being' ('Ubersein') of an ego is nothing more than a continuous, primordially
streaming constituting. It is a constituting of various levels of existents (or "worlds") ...
(Ms. B IV 5, 1932 or 1933; HA XV, Kern ed., pp. 589-90).
 Notes
279

The solipsism implicit in this passage is readily apparent. An ego which is not

"meaningfully multipliable" would not have Others whom he could recognize as egos

like himself. This inference, however, is denied by Husserl. Thus, when he asserts

that he is "not a numerical singular," not "a one among many," he immediately adds

"and yet, at the same time, I am just a man, just one among a whole collection of men"

(Ms. B I 32, V, p. 19). In asserting the ego's unique singularity, what is actually

asserted is "one's own life and other lives; I myself, the absolutely non-numerable,

singular ego in connection with other egos -- i.e., multiple egos and myself as one

among many -- and each ego, however, as a non-numerical singular ... who constitutes

a world that is non-numerically singular as existing for himself" (Ms. B I 22, V, pp.

20-21, Spring, 1934).

This passage concludes with the words, "How is this to be understood?" The

difficulty, here, is one which we have noted before. A plurality of unique singulars, all

of the same type, is a contradiction in terms. A uniquely singular ground of the world is

its necessary and sufficient condition. By definition, it is simply one. If I ignore this, a

certain paradox appears. When I take myself as the ground of everything conceivable, I

have to assert that "every conceivable transcendental ego ... is one which must be

constructed from my actuality and from my capacity [for constitution]" (Ms. E III 9,

Nov. 5, 1931; HA XV, Kern ed., p. 383, note 1). Yet, if I assert that other egos are also

uniquely singular grounds of the world, I would have to add as Husserl does: "Every

conceivable transcendental ego is only conceivable as such [i.e., as transcendental]

insofar as it is from its being that I am actual and possible for it. Yet, its being, taken

here as a possible being is only possible from my actuality" (Ibid.). What we confront,

then, is the paradox of each ego being considered as a product of his Others even as he

considers his Others as his products. The paradox springs from each ego claiming, "My
 Notes
280

being is the apodictic ground for everything which has sense and being for me." To posit

the Other as able to make this claim is to assert that "out of my apodicticity, I posit the

being of the Other as a ground which exists apodictically for itself, a ground for

everything which exists for it including myself and my apodicticity" (Ibid.).

The above returns us to an issue which occupied us in our last chapter: that of

the identity and difference of the individual with regard to his pre-individual, uniquely

singular ground. The paradox of a pluralty of egos, each claiming to be a uniquely

singular ground of being (including the being of its Others) is a paradox springing from

the coincidence of each ego with its ground. To use the language of our third chapter,

the paradox springs from the manifestation of the ground in the concealment of human

finitude. We can also say that each ego claims its uniqueness in terms of its identity with

its "apodictic" ground; but in terms of such identity, its uniqueness entails its pre-

egological coincidence with its Others. Thus, identified with its ground, each ego has

what Husserl calls a "surpassing being (Übersein)." It transcends itself in its worldly

individuality once it takes up the standpoint of its ground. For Husserl, the latter is "a

continual, primordially streaming constituting. It is a constituting of various levels of

existents (or 'worlds') ..." The reference, here, is to the absolute considered as the process

of temporalization -- i.e., as the ordering of contents in time so as to produce the levels of

synthetic, constituted existents.

The project of this chapter will be to consider our self-surpassing in terms of this

process of absolute temporalization. More precisely put, we will consider it in terms of

the origin of temporalization -- i.e., in terms of "the primal present which is not a

modality of time," but rather its source. We will regard this source both in itself and in

its relation to the individual subject. In this way, we shall consider the temporal

dimension of our coincidence with our ground and, hence, with each other. In involving
 Notes
281

our self-surpassing, this dimension, as we shall see, will entail our contingency as finite

individuals.

§3. The Temporal Reduction

We have spoken of the reduction which uncovers the process of temporalization

as an abstraction based on a change of focus. We turn our attention from content to time.

We consider the temporal flow of consciousness apart from the particular contents it

bears. Now, to reach the source of the temporal flow, we require something further. The

search for a constitutive source implies that we take time as a constituted phenomenon.

For Husserl, this involves the notion of retentions and protentions. Thus, a content

appears to flow into pastness because we apprehend it through a constantly increasing

chain of retentions. Each further member of this chain marks it as increasingly past.

Similarly, a content appears to advance from the future because of a chain of protentions,

the length of which determines our sense of its futurity. It is the decrease of the chain

which gives us the sense of the content approaching the present. The exact description of

this process will have to wait for our final chapter. For the present, we need only to

accept a single point. If we scramble the order of our retentions and protentions, the ego

becomes "perplexed" in its "inner temporality" (See above, ). This implies that it is

the ordering of retentions and protentions which constitutes our sense of contents

occupying definite positions in the past and the future. Such an ordering is not a

connecting of different contents. It is a connecting of different presentations -- different

"short term" memories and different anticipations -- of one and the same content. These

different presentations do not occur in different moments of extended time; rather, their

connections are what first results in our apprehension of such moments. Granting this,

we can say that a bracketing of such connections is a suspension of our sense of the

flowing past and future understood as parts of extended time. For Husserl, this
 Notes
282

suspension forms the heart of the temporal reduction. It can be called a "reduction within

the reduction" insofar as its context is the temporal flow as such, the latter being

uncovered by the above mentioned abstraction.

What remains after we perform this supension? In a general sense, Husserl's

answer is determined by the notion that constitution is a process of grounding.

Inherent in this notion is the distinction between the ground and the grounded. The

latter achieves new predicates through the connections obtaining between the

grounding or constituting phenomena. When we bracket these connections to observe

the constituting phenomena, these predicates must disappear. As Husserl puts this in

terms of temporal constitution:

The phenomena which constitute time are, therefore, objectivities which are evidently
different in principle from those that are constituted in time. They are neither individual
objects nor individual processes; and the predicates of such cannot be sensibly applied to
them. Thus, it is senseless to say to them -- to say with the same meaning [which is
applicable to the constituted] -- that they are in the now or that they were previously, that
they temporally succeed one another or that they are simultaneous with each other, etc.
(Zur Phänomenologie des inneren Zeitbewusstseins, Boehm ed., Haag, 1966, pp. 74-75).

We can gain a specific sense of these remarks, which were written in 1905, by adding a

later insight. "The performance of the phenomenological epoché" is understood as "a

radical 'limitation' to the living present and a desire to speak only about this ..." (Ms. C I

3, p. 2, Nov. 1930). Thus, once I bracket the connections between retentions and

protentions which give me my past and future, I am limited to this "living present." We

cannot say that this present is "in the now" understood as a moment which will slip into

the past. Equally, it cannot be taken as a limiting point between the past and the future.

The bracketing of the connections which yield our sense of extended time rules out these
 Notes
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interpretations. What remains is simply my "primal present," the present which is "not a

modality of time."

As we might expect, Husserl's statements on this reduction are marked by the

ambiguity we encountered in our last section. If, as we cited Husserl, "It is from me that

time is constituted," then a reduction to the ground of time is a reduction to myself. It is

a reduction to my living present as it functions as a ground of constitution. In support of

this position, we can cite the passage: "One requires a reduction within the

transcendental reduction to grasp, in a more complete manner, the streaming immanent

temporalization and time, to grasp the primal temporalization, the primal time ... This is

the reduction to the streaming, primal 'immanence,' to the primal unities constituting

themselves in this [immanence] ..." (Ms. C 7 I, pp. 31-32, Jan. - July 1932). "Primal

'immanence'" signifies what is primally within me. The reduction, thus, appears to lead

to myself as a "presupposition for all presence." Against this, we can place Husserl's

claims that temporalization is pre-egological, that it possesses "'layers' beneath the ego."

This implies that the reduction to primal temporalization is a reduction to what is before

me. To reach its underlying levels, "... I must not terminate the reduction in my

bracketing of the world and, with this, my spatial-temporal, real human being in the

world." I must exercise it "on myself as a transcendental ego and as a transcendental

accomplishing, in short, as a transcendental life" (Ms. C 2 I, p. 11, Aug. 1931). When I

do perform this reduction, I reach what Husserl terms "... the pre-being (Vor-Sein) which

bears all being, including even the being of the acts and the being of the ego, indeed, the

being of the pre-time and the being of the stream of consciousness [understood] as a

being" (Ms. C 17 IV, p. 4, 1930). All of this results from primal temporalization. When

I regard this temporalization, I find as "constituted" formations "all the levels of existents

for the ego and also, correlatively, the ego itself" (Ibid., p. 5).
 Notes
284

Two points can be drawn from these remarks. The first is a general one

concerning individual beings or existents (Seienden). The move from being to pre-being

implies that all such existents have a temporal being. As Husserl explicitly says:

"Temporalization, this is the constitution of existents in their temporal modalities. An

existent: a present existent with the past of the same existent, with the future coming to

be of the same. Thus, in an original sense, existent = original, concrete presence. It is

persisting presence which 'includes,' as non-independent components in the stream of

presences, both past and future" (Ms. C 13, III, p. 1, March 1934). In other words,

"Every concrete individual persists in time and is what it is because, constantly

becoming, it passes from presence to presence" (Ms. E III 2, p. 2 1934). As already

noted, when we suspend the connections of the retentional and protentional chains, we

suspend objective time. We suspend its constant becoming which means that we also

suspend the notion of persisting in time. With this, we bracket the individual existent

understood as the "concrete presence" which persists through the moments (or

"presences") of time. Applying this to the individual subject, we can say that it is no

longer present as an ego of habitualities. It no longer has its persisting "themes" or ways

of approaching the world. As for its status as a pure ego or center of its temporal

environment, this too must be bracketed. The "now" which it represents is stripped of

the pastness and futurity which made it a center (See above, ).

Granting this, the reduction in passing from the individual existent to the "pre-

being" which is its ground, passes from the individual ego to its pre-individual ground.

If we take it as a reduction to what is within me, i.e., to my "streaming primal

'immanence,' we have to say that within me there is something prior to me. Our second

point, then, is that, qua individual, I exist in time. This existence, however, is based on

that which, per se, is not an individual object or process. It is based on that which is

present, but not present as a modality of time.

 Notes
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§4. Temporalization and Anonymity

The result of the temporal reduction is described by Husserl both as "present"

and as "streaming"; yet a temporal sense is denied to these terms. Thus, Husserl writes:

"The regressive inquiry, which begins with the epoché, leads to the primary, stationary

(strehende) streaming; in a certain sense, it leads to the 'nunc stans,' the stationary

present. Properly speaking, the word 'present' is unsuitable in this context insofar as it

already indicates a modality of time" (Ms. C 7 I, pp. 30-1, June-July 1932). His point,

here, is that a "modality of time" -- such as the past, the prseent or the future -- involves

time's ordering. To be in time is to be in a moment fixed in successively ordered time.

Such moments slip from presence to pastness. Thus, the now of the present slips into the

"just past'' and, from thence, to further degrees of pastness. In contrast to this, the

present uncovered by the epoché is, Husserl observes, "'now' and only 'now'." When he

calls it a "stationary present," this does not mean that it is static -- i.e., a dead as opposed

to a living present. He wards off this interpretation by calling it a "stationary streaming."

We can explain this by saying that because it remains now, it is stationary; but because of

this, it can be said to stream with regard to what does not remain now. Thus, its

stationary quality is also its transcendence of the moments of successively ordered time

as they slip into pastness. The sense of this continual transcendence is that of its

continual streaming with regard to such moments. As Husserl observes, this streaming

cannot, itself, be considered as occurring in time. Its "place," so to speak, is in the

constant present, the present that is not a modality of time. As such, it lacks the sense of

being extended through time. He writes in this regard:

This streaming, living present is not what we elsewhere, also in a transcendental-

phenomenological sense, designated as the stream of consciousness or stream of
 Notes
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experiences. It is, per se, not a "stream" according to the pattern of what is properly a
temporal (or even a spatial-temporal) whole ... The streaming, living present is
"continuously" being qua streaming (Strömendsein), but it is not such in an apartness of
being (Auseinander-Sein). [It is] not [such] in the being that has spatial-temporal,
worldly spatial extension or the being that has "immanent" temporal extension. Thus, [it
is] not [such] in the apartness which is called succession, succession in the sense of the
apartness of positions in what can properly be called time (Ms. C 3 I, p. 4, 1930).

In other words, we can say that this present streams; but we cannot say that it streams

in the "apartness" of time.

The strict sense of this stationary streaming can be given by contrasting two

different ways of viewing the living present. Before the reduction, this present appears

to be that through which objectively extended time flows. Thus, from the standpoint of

the now which I constantly occupy, time seems to stream towards my nowness from the

future and away from it into pastness. Thus, the nowness which I occupy appears as a

stationary point of passage for the flowing of the extended temporal stream. The

reduction, however, brackets the connections which result in the "apartness" or extension

of time. After its performance, I limit myself solely to my immediate nowness or "living

present." What the reduction invites me to do is to regard this passing through my

present simply in the context of this present. When I do, then what appeared to transit

through it shows itself as a "welling up" within it. Passing through, in other words, is

exhibited as the successive production in this present of what comes to be regarded as the

successive moments of time. This present's stationary streaming is its constant action of

generating time.1

Two points follow from the above. The first is Husserl's claim that the living

"present is 'absolute actuality'; it is actuality in the proper sense as that which is primally

productive" (Ms. C 17, Sept. 20-22, 1931; HA XV, Kern ed., p. 348). The claim
 Notes
287

concerns the present which is "primally temporalizing (Urzeitigend)" and, by virtue of

this, "primally generating (Urzeugend)." For Husserl, this present is actuality in the

sense of being in act, the act being the welling up which is productive of the distinct

moments of time. As we cited him above, "The absolute itself is this universal,

primordial present. Within it 'lie' all time and world in every sense. Itself streaming, [it

is] actuality in the strict, worldly sense of 'being present'" (Ms. C I, Sept. 22-23, 1934;

ed. cit., p. 668). In other words, "Both time and world are temporalized in the absolute

which is the stationary streaming now" (Ibid., p. 670). Thus, the present, in

temporalizing -- i.e., in producing the moments of time -- is that which makes things

actual in the worldly sense of being present in time.

Our second point is that this production of time is not, itself, in time. It is not

something occurring in "the apartness of positions" which characterize time. It occurs

in the present, the primal nowness, which has been brought into view by suspending

this apartness. Such apartness is a constituted phenomenon. It is a matter of the

connections between retentions and protentions which fix the moments of time in an

extended, successive order. As such, it is a necessary level for world constitution

considered as a process of synthesizing the contents which are successively given to us.

The condition of such constitution is the production of the successive positions of time,

i.e., of time itself in its apartness. As Husserl observes, the ultimate basis of this

condition cannot, itself, be conditioned by it. Thus, the welling up of time is not, itself,

to be described in terms of the apartness of time which will result from it. This means

that it must be understood "as a constitution, a temporalization, a temporal becoming

which is a pre-becoming, not a becoming in an ontical, a constituted sense" (Ms. B I

14, XI, p. 18, 1934). Becoming in an "ontical" sense refers to world constitution. It

concerns the becoming of synthetic, "real" unities in already constituted time. "Pre-
 Notes
288

becoming" refers to the coming to be of time itself, i.e., of the moments which will be

retained and protended so as to give us a sense of a definite, successive order.

These points may seem abstract; but we can make them concrete by relating

them to the nowness of our functioning. Such nowness signifies that the individual

subject is immediately present to himself as he performs his various acts. The acts slip

away into pastness. Action becomes past action. "But I," Husserl says, "the identical

[subject] of my acts, am 'now' and only 'now' and am, in my being as an accomplisher,

still the accomplisher of the action ..." (Ms. C 10, p. 26, 1931). The same point can be

expressed vis-a-vis the object of my action. In my ongoing act of perceiving an object, I

constantly share a now with the latter. The now of the object, however, constantly slips

into pastness. The present tone of a melody gives way to another. Its now is replaced by

the next in the order of succession. "Yet this temporalization," Husserl remarks, "ought

not to cover up the fact that I am egologically-continually-streamingly now and only now

...," this as the "performer" of the perception (Ibid.) There is, we can say, a double

necessity for this constant nowness of the perceiving, acting subject. If the subject

himself became past, he would cease to be an actor. What is past is fixed. It is not an

accomplishing, but a having accomplished. On the objective side, this constant nowness

is required so that the object can successively unfold its contents. If the subject were to

remain fixed in the moment when he perceived a particular content, he could not

apprehend any others. The possibility of such further apprehension is the possibility of

the moment with its content slipping into pastness vis-a-vis the perceiving subject. This,

however, is the possibility of the subject, in his constant nowness, transcending the

distinct moments of successively ordered time.

When we turn the reduction on this last possibility, we see that it is based on the

welling up of time. This welling up appears as a transcending if we view it in the context

of what wells up -- i.e., the constituted moments of time. The latter depart into pastness
 Notes
289

while their source transcends them by remaining present. Transcendence, then, is

required for perception; and the reduction reveals its dependence on the "stationary

streaming" or welling up of time. The same point holds for all egological actions. As

Husserl observes, the ego in its constant self-presence "is stationary and remaining in a

special sense: it, itself, does not stream [away in time], but it does act. It posits its thesis

(setzt seinen Satz), and this acting is a letting loose from itself. It is a primal welling up,

a creative allowing to depart from itself of that which, itself, streams, namely the acts

(Ms. B III 9, pp. 13-14, Oct.-Dec. 1931). Thus, the departure in time of our contents of

experience is also the temporal unfolding of our perceptual acts. Composed of non-

intentional contents the acts synthesize them into intentional unities. The "streaming" of

these acts is the departure of their contents. The welling up upon which this is based also

allows the acts themselves to depart. It gives the ego which remains now the possibility

of performing new acts.

In this context, a certain identification seems all but inevitable. If the ego acts by

virtue of "a primal welling up" and if the source of this welling up is the living present,

then the acting ego, qua actor, seems to be identical with this present. Husserl, in fact,

does equate "the primal-phenomenal, concrete stream of the present" with

"transcendental subjectivity [taken] in the primal form of its being." Such a form is "the

primally streaming present." Describing the latter, he asserts, "This, in fact, is the 'primal

phenomenon' which all transcendental, regressive inquiry leads back to in the method of

the reduction (Ms. C 2 I, p. 13, Aug. 1931). I perform the reduction on myself, on my

own subjectivity. Thus, the nowness which it discovers at the source of egological action

appears to pertain to my very selfhood as an accomplishing ego. As Husserl puts this

conclusion: "... the ego which is always now and remains now (which, as a stationary

and lasting now, is actually now a now in an objective sense) is this living, this
 Notes
290

'supertemporal (überzeitliche)' now, [is] the ego of all accomplishing ... (Ms. C 10, p. 29,

1931).

These remarks may be taken as a consequence of the statement we earlier cited:

"I am. It is from me that time is constituted." A question, however, remains as to the

identity of this "I am." The ego, taken as a persisting, individual unity is constituted

through the successive moments of time. How can we identify this with the ego whose

functioning includes the welling up of time? As Husserl observes, the attempt to identify

the two is fraught with difficulties. Paradoxes and infinite regresses appear. They

spring, we can say, from the distinction between the constituting and the constituted. If

to be a Seiende -- an individual existent -- is to be in time and if time itself is constituted,

then we cannot say that time constitution is the result of the functioning of an individual

existent. The individual ego, taken as a constitutor of time, would then require for its

own being in time -- i.e., its own individual existence -- a prior constitution of time. If

we were to assert that this prior constitution is, itself, the result of the functioning of an

individual, we would then have to posit another indivdiual ego behind the first and so on

indefinitely. In Husserl's words, we would constantly face "the renewed distinction

between the constituting and the constituted ego and egological time." We would be led

back "to an infinity of transcendental egos," each constitutively responsible for the next

(Ms. B I 14, XI, p. 18; see also Ibid., pp. 16-17, 1934). The same regress appears when

we speak of the streaming life of the ego. Husserl writes: "I exist in my streaming life.

I am, as it will appear, not this streaming life itself; but I am who I am only within the

ontological form of this streaming life ..." The regress appears when I say that the ego

"temporalizes the first immanent sphere [the sphere of its streaming life], but itself only

exists by virtue of a temporalization, and so on again and again" (Ms. C 3 III, p. 7, Nov.

1930).
 Notes
291

A remarkable conclusion arises out of this regress. We can reach it by recalling

Husserl's doctrine that all real, individual existents are unities of sense. As we earlier put

this, the thesis of the X, which is the thesis of the object's individual existence, is also the

thesis of its sense. Both follow from the fact that the object is posited through the

synthesis of our successive experiences. The result of this is a one in many -- i.e., the

object which is present as one thing exhibiting itself in many successive appearances. Its

one in many character makes it a sense. It also makes it a Seiende since it means that we

grasp it as persisting through the successive moments of time. Now, we can break the

above regress by distinguishing the ego which "temporalizes the first immanent sphere"

from the ego which "exists by virtue of a temporalization." The latter, we can claim, is a

real unity and, hence, a unity of sense. As for the former, we must say that it is prior to

such. Thus, if it is from me that time is constituted, I cannot say that I am, as its

constituter, in time.2 If I did, the regress would recur since I would have to say that the

constituter of time requires time in order to be such a constituter and, hence, requires a

prior constitution of time. This cannot be my status if, as Husserl insists, "... I am the

actor of the nunc stans," for here he associates me with the "primal willing up" which, in

constituting time, permits my action (Ms. B III 9, p. 25 Oct.-Dec., 1931). Thus, as the

nunc stans' actor, I must be before all connectedness in time; I must be before all the

individual existents and corresponding senses which arise through the synthesis of what I

temporally experience. Qua functioning, I am, therefore, without any objective sense

whatsoever. Strictly speaking, Husserl's conclusion is that I am anonymous as a

constituter of time. None of the names which can be drawn from the objective senses of

the world apply to me in my ultimate functioning.

As we have presented it, this conclusion is a matter of logical deduction. It

arises from our applying the principle, "What is ultimately constituting is not itself

constituted" (Ms. B I 14, XI, p. 19, 1935). For Husserl, however, my anonymity is
 Notes
292

also something which I can immediately encounter. All I have to do is attempt to grasp

myself as functioning. When I do, a dichotomy opens up between myself as

functioning and the object of this functioning. In Husserl's words, "Whenever I am

occupied with myself and my specific egological functions, I have this distinction

between what I am occupied with and myself, i.e., between my being actively engaged

and that with which I am actively engaged. ... The actively functioning 'I do,' 'I

discover,' is constantly anonymous." When I turn my attention to the latter, "it is

brought up by a new functioning ego," an ego which is not, itself, attended to (Ms. A

VII, 11, pp. 90-92, Oct. 26, 1932). As Husserl elsewhere puts this:

... the ego which is the counterpart (gegenüber) to everything is anonymous. It is not its
own counterpart. The house is my counterpart, not vice versa. And yet I can turn my
attention to myself. But then this counterpart in which the ego comes forward along with
everything which was its counterpart is again split. The ego which comes forward as a
counterpart and its counterpart [e.g., the house it was perceiving] are both counterparts to
me. Forthwith, I -- the subject of this new counterpart -- am anonymous (Ms. C 2 I, p. 2,
Aug. 1931).

This inability to grasp myself as presently perceiving arises from the necessities

inherent in perception. For an object to unfold its contents to me, I must remain now

while the moments bearing its contents depart into pastness. Thus, the object whose

sense results from the synthesis of these contents is not now in a primary sense. It arises

from a retaining in the now of what, in fact, has departed from the now. This means that

its contents are presently grasped as occupying the positions of departed time. Without

this, what is synthesized from them -- the object itself -- would not be seen as persisting

through these positions -- persisting even as they continue to depart from the present.

For Husserl, this analysis implies that, "I am always ahead of myself" when I attempt to
 Notes
293

objectively grasp myself (Ms. C 16 VI, p. 7, Aug. 1932). 3 This cannot be otherwise

given the contrast beween the nowness in which I function and the departure from it

which is required for objective apprehension. To cite Husserl again: "In reflection, I

encounter myself in the temporal field in which my just past (mein Soeben) has

functioned ... But in the now point, I am in contact with myself as functioning" (Ms. A V

5, p. 3, Jan. 1933).

When I turn to this point of contact, I find something other than the "given" of

my objects, something which is distinguished from the "pre-givenness" of the world

taken as the totality of existing objects. As Husserl expresses this: "Functioning

subjectivity is constantly presupposed, proceeding ahead (Voraufgehende); but it is not

pre-given. The world, the universe of existing objects is pre-given, pre-given to us as

functioning existents who possess in our functioning the sense of their [i.e., objects']

being. This functioning is constantly anonymous ..." (Ms. K III 4, p. 8, 1934-35). What

is not anonymous are the objects which are given to us with a nameable sense. What is

anonymous is the subjectivity which goes before the latter, constantly "ahead" of them in

its nowness. It is the subjectivity which is associated with the giving which precedes all

objective givenness. Thus, in contact with myself as functioning, I am in contact with

the stationary streaming now. It is the latter whose streaming gives the given. In

Husserl's words: "The primal phenomenon of the streaming is the phenomenon of all

phenomena, of all existents for us in every possible sense; for everything exists in the

primal streaming as 'giving itself' within it and, in the broadest sense, exists as a self, a

persisting unity in its streaming moments" (Ms. C 2 I, p. 13, Aug. 1931). It exists, we

can say, by virtue of the welling up of time, the very welling up which makes possible

temporal departure and, hence, objective givenness.

With this, we can see why Husserl chooses to break the above regress by

insisting that he is, indeed, "the actor of the nunc stans." The anonymity of the
 Notes
294

functioning subject which results from this position is a directly observable phenomenon.

As such, it serves as evidence confirming it. In other words, my very inability to grasp

myself in the nowness of my being points to this nowness as a giving which is distinct

from the objectively given. For Husserl, then, this nowness is what I am in the core of

my functioning; but as such, it is distinguished from what I am in any objective, worldly

sense. To put this in terms of the theme of this chapter, we can say that this nowness

represents the temporal dimension of our coincidence with our ground. In coincidence

with it, we engage in perception, we function. Yet in the same coincidence, we transcend

our worldly identity. We surpass ourselves as objective unities, which means that the

names appropriate to the latter are not appropriate to ourselves.

§5. Temporalization as the Constitution of Transcendence.

As we noted in our last section, the welling up of time appears as a transcending

when we take it in the context of what wells up -- i.e., the constituted moments of

objective time. According as we view it, we can say that such moments transcend the

present as they depart into pastness; we can also say that the present transcends these

departing moments in its remaining now. No matter what our perspective, the basic

phenomenon here is one of constant separation. There is a continual distinction

between the constituting and the constituted. Thus, on the one hand, we have the now

which is engaged in primal temporalization, the now which is not, itself, a modality of

time. On the other hand, "we have, in this primal temporalization, the primal present,

the primal past and the primal future, themselves as constituted temporal modalities

which, for their part, stream ..." (Ms. C 7 I, p. 17, June-July 1932). This streaming can

be expressed in terms of the timelessness of the original present. The latter is not a

modality of time since it cannot be positioned so as to be fixed within its successive

ordering. Granting this, its "objectification" or "appearance" as a present moment of

 Notes
295

time is one with its escape from this position. To speak in terms of the present's

transcendence we can say that it is constantly "ahead" of itself -- i.e., ahead of its

objectification as a position in time. Its timelessness, then, implies its departure; and

its departure is the occasion for its further appearance in what will be the next position

in time. It is, thus, always appearing as the next present; yet even as it appears in time,

it is always departing from this appearance to what will be the next. This departure,

we can say, is its anonymity. It is its inability to be grasped in terms of the fixed,

objectively given positions of time. Reversing our perspective, we can speak of the

departure from the now of the "constituted temporal modalities" formed by such

positions. Here, the timelessness of the now, i.e., its distinction from such positions,

implies the streaming of these modalities.

Either way we look at it, the phenomenon we face is that of separation. For

Husserl, this signifies that "... in the primordial sphere, worldly perception

(Wahrnehmung von Weltlichkeiten) and the world separate themselves ..." This sphere

is that of "the being of streaming as a stationary lasting" (Ms. C 7 I, p. 2). It is the sphere

of the streaming of time understood as the continual separation of the stationary present

from the present which is its constituted appearance. By virtue of this separation, an

original temporal distance opens up. It is the distance which allows the object to be a

Gegenstand -- i.e., to be present as "standing against" the subject. The non-identity, the

transcendence implied in this standing against is temporal. In other words, the original

transcendence is that of the constituting now as it distinguishes itself from its constituted

appearance. In transcending its appearance, it remains now. As for the appearance itself,

it becomes, vis-a-vis the constituting now, a just past now. It appears as what has welled

up, what has been let loose from its constituting source. This process goes on continually

and its result, for Husserl, is the continual "intentional modification" of the constituted

into greater and greater pastness. As more and more just past moments successively
 Notes
296

intervene, an increasing temporal distance opens up between what was once "just past"

and my stationary lasting present.

If I speak of this modification as resulting from my transcending my present

appearance, then I can say with Husserl, "In every present taken as a phrase and, thus, in

the stationary lasting present, I am such that I transcend my present being" (Ms. C 7 I, p.

5). Reversing my perspective, I can also say that this momentary "present being"

transcends me as it slips into pastness. Here, I assert: "The not now transcends the now;

in particular [it transcends] the [present] consciousness of the not now. Thus, the

continuity of intentional modifications (Abwandlungen) is a constant continuity in which

one originally apprehends transcendence. What is transcended is always consciousness."

Thus, in the modifications which successively turn my present appearance into a just past

appearance, my present, functioning consciousness is itself transcended. Directing

myself to what stands over and against me, I grasp myself "not as the self I am but as the

self I was" (Ibid.).

No matter what perspective we embrace, the claim of the above is clear. It is

that "in streaming, a self-transcending is continually accomplished; namely a past is

constituted ..." (Ms. C 7 I, p. 6). In the streaming away from myself of my temporal

appearances, I achieve the temporal transcendence of becoming past to myself. This

cannot be otherwise given that I identify myself with the originally constituting now.

From the perspective of the constituted, the appearing of this now is one with its

departure from this appearance. Its timelessness is its transcendence, its escape from the

fixed positions it constitutes. Reversing our perspective, we can say that this escape is its

constitution of time. It is its "letting loose," its "creative allowing to depart from itself"

of the moments of successive time. It is, thus, its continual creation of temporal

transcendence -- the transcendence of what, temporally speaking, seems to "enter" my

constant now and what "passes away to make place for another" (Ms. D 13 III, pp. 9-10,
 Notes
297

July 7, 1933). As Husserl puts this: "In the whole continuity [of time], I am ... the

present, primary-actual primordium which originally constitutes what is originally past

and future. ... I exists in the streaming creation (schaffen) of transcendence, in the

creation of self-transcendence, of being as self-pastness, self-futurity and self-presence."

These constituted modalities of time succeed one another in their successive order. In

distinction to this, "I exists, I in the lasting (Währen) which I am; and I am always

already such lasting in this type of being which is one of a multiple, continuous

transcendence of my primal modal being as now" (Ms. C 7 I, pp. 5-6). The "type of

being" (Seinsart) referred to is that of streaming, understood as the streaming away from

"my primal modal being as now." Because the latter, in its remaining now, does not

itself stream into pastness, it can be called "lasting." Because it lasts, there is the

phenomenon of transcendence, i.e., the primal now's being transcended by what does not

last, but rather departs into pastness.

Two conclusions follow from the above. The first is that the timeless, "lasting"

subject distinguishes itself from its temporally unfolding objects by not possessing the

"over-againstness" of the latter. Its self-presence is its lack of the temporal distance

which would allow it to be objective. It, thus, remains anonymous. 4 This anonymity,

however, is constantly changing to its opposite. The ego which is not over against itself,

i.e., not self-transcendent, "exists," as Husserl writes, "in the streaming creation of

transcendence." A regard to the presently functioning ego is, then, a regard to "the

primordium in its first temporalization, in its first existential mode of creating temporal

transcendence, the transcendence which is originally created in the stationary [streaming]

present and is always already constituted (Ms. C 7 I, p. 7). The constitution of this

transcendence is the constitution of the over-againstness of objectivity. It is the

constitution of the "outside" of the functioning ego. With this, we have our second

conclusion: This outside is not externally given to an ego. In De Bohr's language,

 Notes
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"transcendental consciousness does not acknowledge an outside ..." because this outside

is something which it, itself, gives or constitutes (See above, ).

§6. Ego--Cogito--Cogitatum

The above allows us to speak, at least in a preliminary way, of the temporal

underpinnings of this threefold distinction. For ease of presentation, let us first turn to

the division:

A. Cogito--Cogitatum

To distinguish these, we must recall a point we earlier made: The cogitatum or

perceived object is understood as other than the perceiving cogito insofar as it is taken as

offering us more than what is actually contained in the cogito. In other words, the

connected experiences making up the apprehending cogito are seen as only a finite part

of what could be grasped in viewing the object. There are experiences "of" the latter in

the sense that they are only a part of what the object can provide. Now, for an object to

have this indefinite availability, none of the experiences it affords can be understood as

the last of a series. Each actual experience must call up the possibility on another, and so

on indefinitely. It is because of this indefinite availability that an object can have the

character of a unity of sense, i.e., a one in many appearances. As we earlier observed, a

true one in many does not per se specify the multitude of its many. It rather leaves

indefinite the actual number of the latter.

Granting that the manyness of the objective unity is that of its appearances in

time, the indefinite continuance of the latter demands the indefinite continuance of time

itself. Time must be such that the appearances occupying its moments can continually

succeed one another. Thus, if time is constituted, its moments must be continually

constituted and constituted such that each gives way to the next. Like the appearance it

bears, each moment must declare that it is not the last, that, in fact, the very possibility of
 Notes
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its existence is equivalent to the possibility of what is to come. With this, we can say that

the temporal dimension of the object's transcendence arises from time's non-temporal

and, hence, unvarying constitutive root. To put this in terms of the welling up of the

now, we can say that insofar as this action is prior to time, it does not have the "time" in

which it could vary. As Husserl expresses this invariability: "In streaming, taken as

stationary, the [temporal] stream constitutes itself. 'Stationary' signifies [its] unvarying

being (Ständigsein) as a process -- the process of primal temporalization" (Ms. C 7 I, p.

31, June-July 1931). This stationary welling up or streaming of the now can, of course,

be viewed in the context of its results. Here, the timelessness of the constitutive now

appears as its inability to be fixed in a given position of time. Thus, even as this now

appears as a now in time, it seems, in this view, to be departing to what will be the next

such appearance. By virtue of this departure, no given moment (or "appearing" now) can

be the last. Indeed, the momentary now is such that its possibility is one with that of the

succeeding moment. This follows since the present moment exists by virtue of its origin;

but the latter is the now which cannot appear except through departure. Thus, the very

departure which allows the present moment to exist as the timeless now's appearance is

"even now" creating the "space," so to speak, for a new appearing -- i.e., making possible

the next moment of time.

To relate this to Husserl's distinction between the cogito and cogitatum, we must

consider the latter as a unity of sense. At the basis of this unity is a recurrent pattern of

perceptions. By virtue of it, an object has continually exhibited itself as the same. Each

recurrence of this pattern has reconfirmed our original positing. When we add to this

process our feeling of the indefinite continuance of time itself, the object is taken as

being able to show itself as the same in an indefinite number of instances. It achieves the

status of being a unity of sense. So conceived, the transcendence of this unity -- i.e., its

distinction from the cogito -- is based upon the contrast between the finite, elapsed time
 Notes
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of the cogito and the indefinite continuance of time itself. The cogito is "of" the

cogitatum because its finite time is seen as only a part of the time available for the full

appearance of the cogitatum. In other words, the latter surpasses the cogito because its

status as an objective unity involves an objectification of our sense of the continuance of

time.

This insight, we may observe, is essentially Kantian. Kant writes: "To time,

itself unchangeable and abiding, there corresponds, in the [field of] appearance, the

unchangeable in existence, i.e., substance ..." ("Kritik d. r. V.," B 183, Kant's Schriften,

III, 137). To relate this to the above, we can take the abiding of time as its inability to

"run out." Its unchanging abiding is its "unvarying being as a process." When we see

this feature as a condition for the possibility of positing substance, we essentially repeat

the arguments we have just given. Like the cogitatum, substance is posited as other than

the cogito by virtue of its abiding. Even when the cogito is directed elsewhere, substance

is thought to abide and, as such, to constantly offer to the cogito the possibility of its

further experience. This, however, is only possible if time itself abides. Only then can

we have the substance qua abiding, i.e., qua its unending potential for self-exhibition in a

series of appearances. The thought of the substance's continuance, thus, "corresponds" to

the thought of the continuance of the time in which the substance's appearances can

manifest themselves. Ultimately, its permanence "corresponds" to the permanence of the

original now. It is this, which in constantly remaining now, can never run out" as it

objectifies itself in time.

B. Ego-Cogito

The temporal basis for distinction seems clear. As far as we have gone, we can

say with Husserl, "The ego in its most original originality is not in time" (Ms. C 10, p.

21, 1931). We can also say that everything which is in time is not the original ego. In
 Notes
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Husserl's words: "The presently streaming present, understood as an immanent

[temporal] stream, is already thoroughly non-ego; and everything which is constituted

and continues to constitute itself within it is the non-ego on various levels" (Ibid.). Thus,

the non-temporal ego is not the cogito understood as a temporally extended act.

Similarly, it is not the persisting cogitatum. 5 Both must be regarded as "levels" of the

non-ego.

There is, however, a certain ambiguity in Husserl's treatment of this distinction.

Statements occur which seem to undermine the non-temporal character of the ego pole.

Thus, in one manuscript, Husserl first asserts, "Naturally, it is senseless to consider the

ego as temporal"; but then he continues a couple of lines later: "Immanent time is the

constant and necessary form of the environment of the ego, and it remains a priori its

environmental form. Afterwards, the necessary temporal relatedness of the ego makes

possible a kind of temporalization of the ego: namely, the constitution of an objective

temporal world ..." As a part of the latter, there is constituted "the human ego which

exists in the world, the ego which becomes identified with the [original, non-temporal]

ego pole ..." (Ms. E III 2, p. 50, date uncertain). In another passage, this "necessary

temporal relatedness" becomes understood as the ego's inseparable oneness with the

temporal: "The original ego, and what is originally its own, is inseparably one

(untrennbar eins) with what, first of all, primally exists for it. It is one with the

temporalized as such; or rather, it is one with the living temporalization in which the

immanently temporalized is constituted as a unity" (Ms. C 3 III, p. 22, March 1931).

The question is, how are we to understand this unity? How can Husserl assert

both the non-temporality of the ego and its being "inseparably one ... with the

temporalized as such"? Here, we return to the question which occupied us in our

second chapter: Is the ego other or is it one with its temporal acts?
 Notes
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To resolve the above, we first observe that, as temporally constituting, the ego

must be considered as non-temporal. We shall not repeat Husserl's arguments in this

regard. Their conclusion is always the same. It is that "in its original functioning, the

functioning pole is never in the temporal field" (Ms. A V 5, p. 3, June 1933). This does

not mean that this pole does not have a relation to the temporal. It constitutes the

temporal. Thus, the very functioning which demands that the ego not be considered as

temporal -- i.e., as fixed in the field's successive ordering -- also demands that it cannot

be thought of apart from time. Its notion as originally functioning -- i.e., as a "living

temporalization" -- involves the notion of constituted time.

Concretely speaking, this signifies that the functioning ego implies its cogito. It

is never without its cogito, although it can never be identified with the latter. For

Husserl, their relation is one of stationariness to streaming, this being understood as the

relationship of actor to act. The crucial statement of this is one which we have already

cited:

Everything which is contained in the streaming [of time] streams. It possesses the

indescribable, primal form of streaming ... Yet the ego is stationary and

remaining in a special sense: it, itself, does not stream, but it does act. It posits

its thesis, and this acting is a letting loose from itself. It is a primal welling up, a

creative allowing to depart from itself of that which, itself, streams, namely the

acts (Ms. B III 9, pp. 13-14, Oct. - Dec. 1931).

The import of this passage is plain. As a temporal process, the cogito or act can be

understood as the result of the ego's constitution of time. By virtue of the latter, we have

temporal departure. A constituted moment recedes into pastness as successively

constituted moments intervene between it and its constitutive origin. The moment
 Notes
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manifests the action of streaming away from its "stationary and remaining" origin. Now,

this action is the underlying action of the cogito. In other words, the unfolding cogito --

the ongoing act -- is, temporally speaking, just this streaming away. It is the manifest

result of the ego's "primal welling up" -- i.e., the ego's "creative" letting loose of the

moments of time from itself.

The same point can be made by calling the cogito the temporal appearance of the

functioning ego. This description follows from two of our earlier conclusions: 1) the

functioning ego is such by being identified with the anonymous now, and 2) the now in

time is the appearance, the objective expression of an original, anonymous now.

Admitting that the now in time streams away, we can say that the "action" of the cogito,

which is that of constantly streaming away, is the appearance of the anonymous now, i.e.,

its appearance as constantly functioning to produce time. What we have, then, is an

exhibition of the ego's functioning by means of the result of such functioning. It is an

exhibition in time. Husserl makes this point while speaking of the presently reflecting

ego. He writes: "... the ego reflected upon in reflection is not the living pole, but the

latter is exhibitable in reflection as anonymous, as functioning. What is exhibitable is

that its functioning is constantly temporalized; and, thus, the functioning exists for the

actively functioning ego in the field of its conscious [temporal] possessions" (Ms. A V 5,

pp. 2-3, Jan. 1933). If we restrict ourselves to speaking of the ego's functioning as

temporalization, the assertion that the original "functioning is constantly temporalized" is

almost a tautology. Being temporalized (or placed in time) is, by definition, the result of

such functioning. Thus, the original now functions to constitute time by becoming

temporalized -- i.e., by appearing in time. That its appearance as a moment of time is

one with its escape from such signifies that its functioning appears as the departure of

this moment. A constituted now appears to stream away. The constant streaming away

of such moments -- understood as the temporal dimension of the living cogito -- is thus,
 Notes
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per se, the temporal exhibition of the original now's (the ego pole's) functioning. It is

also, we note, an exhibition of the latter's anonymity, i.e., of the fact that it "is never in

the temporal field." This follows because the moments which we can objectively grasp

are not the same as their original source point; they rather are those which are departing

from this. Anonymity, then, is exhibited as the 0 point of such departure.

We can pursue these thoughts on the relation of the constituting now to what it

constitutes by returning to Husserl's claim: "The present is 'absolute actuality'; it is

actuality in the proper sense as that which is primally productive." Its being in act, we

said, is the "welling up" which yields the departing moments of time. "As such," Husserl

continues, "it exists ontifying [or objectifying] itself in the temporal mode. Primally

temporalizing, it has temporal being as its ontical acquisition. Primally generating, it

always has already generated temporal being. Constantly in the present, I [am] the

possessor of the acquired [temporality]. Always in the present of my acquisitions,

always apprehended as the ego who I am and as the same as the ego I was, I have a lived

life behind me and have what I have acquired from this, etc. ..." (Ms. C 17, Sept. 20-22,

1931; HA XV, Kern ed., p. 348). Reflecting on this passage, several things can be said.

The first is that my being in the constituting present is my existence as surrounded by the

results of its constitution. As we quoted Husserl, "immanent time" becomes my

"constant and necessary" environmental form. The thought of such an environment is,

thus, correlated to the thought that my present constitutes immanent time. Furthermore,

my relation to this environment is necessarily that of its center or 0 point. The

constituting present always appears as the present between the anticipated (or not yet

constituted) future and the given, already constituted past. Existing in this central

present, I thus, always exist in the point from which futurity and pastness is measured.

Once again, we may observe that it is precisely because I exist at this 0 point that I must

remain anonymous. To objectively appear to myself, I must, according to Husserl,

 Notes
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transcend myself. A certain temporal distance must open up. Thus, I can imaginatively

anticipate what I will be in the future. I can also recall what I was in the past. Both are

transcendent to me insofar as the one lies "before" me, the other "behind." When,

however, I confront my present being, no such temporal distance is available. My being

at the center is my lack of self-transcendence. This being, thus, exhibits my anonymity.

These remarks allow us to return to a conclusion which we earlier touched upon.

Although I am anonymous as the center of my temporal field, this does not prevent me

from asserting that I can, as a center, be considered as the result of a constitutive process.

According to Husserl, "I exist in the unity of a life which, as constituted, bears in itself an

immanent temporal order ..." (Ms. B I 32, p. 17, May or Aug. 1931). It is the order of

pastness and futurity in which I am situated at the 0 point. Insofar as this environing

temporal order is thought to be constituted so is my position at its center. What we have,

then, is the constitution of my "central" being through the constitution of that which

centers me -- i.e., that in relation to which I can be called a center. This means that to

the point that I can be said to constitute this temporal environment, I can be said to

constitute myself as its temporal center.

Whether or not "I" can be considered as active on this fundamental level is, of

course, deeply problematical. What we can say is that the constitution of this

environment is one with the constitution of my appearance as active. It is the

constitution of the streaming which, for Husserl, is the underlying action of the ongoing

cogito. Such action appears as ongoing because temporal constitution is itself ongoing.

Appearing moments are always being added to the temporal field. Thus, the field is

constituted as streaming. Since I am always at the center of this field, this streaming can

be seen as my constantly shifting my position. From the perspective of the field, my

remaining at its temporal midpoint is my constantly transcending what was "just now" its

center before this slipped into pastness. The centering environment shifts and, with it,
 Notes
306

the midpoint between the past and anticipated future undergoes a displacement. A

change of perspective is, however, always possible. What appeared as the motion of the

center can appear as its own "letting loose," its own action of allowing the moment which

was the center to be added to the past. In other words, from the perspective of the center,

which is that of my constant present, I do not appear to change my position. I seem,

rather, to be the actor whose action is the welling up of the positions of time.

We can put this even more directly by beginning with this welling up. For

Husserl, welling up is the action of the present which is "absolute actuality." Insofar as

the action of this present results in its being surrounded by a past and an anticipated

future, its action appears as that of the present which divides the two. It appears as my

action since my being as a central ego is my presence at the temporal mid-point. In a

certain sense, my appearance as the source point of time matches my reality. Actually

present in the center of the field, I am in coincidence with the source point. In the

anonymity which characterizes my being at the center, I am, in fact, indistinguishable

from the present which is "primally generating."

It is in terms of the foregoing that Husserl's remarks on the temporal constitution

of the nunc stans must be read. He writes that the original now's "basic structure is that

of constituting itself as the nunc stans of a unitary streaming ..." In this, it appears, not

just as "a stationary and remaining primal now," but also as a "primal source point" --

i.e., as "a primally welling primal now" (Ms. C 2, 1, p. 15, Aug. 1931). As the context of

these remarks indicates, Husserl is not asserting that the ultimately constituting now is

itself constituted. What is constituted is its appearance as such. Thus, his focus is on its

"primal phenomenal being," this as "originally apprehended" in its phenomenal character

(Ibid.) This character requires that the original now be viewed in relation to what can

appear. More precisely, it must be viewed in terms of the streaming which is the
 Notes
307

temporal appearance of its functioning. When we take this view, we can say with

Husserl:

A lasting and remaining primal now constitutes itself in this streaming. It constitutes
itself as a fixed form for a content which streams through it and as the source point for all
constituted modifications. In union with [the constitution of] the fixed form of the
primally welling primal now, there is constituted a two-sided continuity forms that are
just as fixed. Thus, in toto, there is constituted a fixed continuum of form in which the
primal now is a primal welling middle point for two continua [understood] as branches of
the modes of [temporal] modifications: the continuum of what is just past and that of
futurities (Ibid.).

Despite its somewhat labored prose, this passage has a clear doctrine. It is that the

constitution of the now as a "fixed form," through which time appears to flow and in

which its moments appear to well up as present and actual, occurs "in union with" a

second constitution -- that of the continua of the past and the future. With the latter, we

have the constitution of the temporal environment which allows the source of time to

appear as a "middle point" within this environment. In other words, we have the

constitution of the "phenomenal being" of this source.

If such being is not "mere appearance," but rather reveals the reality of which it

is the appearance, then we can draw a sharp distinction between Kant's and Husserl's

doctrines of the anonymity of the functioning subject. This distinction arises in spite of

certain similarities between the two. For Kant, as for Husserl, anonymity arises because

of the limitation of the "inner sense" of reflection. "This sense," Kant writes, "presents

even ourselves to consciousness only as we appear to ourselves, not as we [presently] are

in ourselves" ("Kritik d. r. V.," B 152-53; Kant's Schriften, III, 120). Both agree that our

appearing functioning is the result of a second, underlying functioning -- that of

temporalization. For Kant, however, the latter is always a hidden functioning. It is a

 Notes
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condition for the possibility of appearance, but is, itself, concealed by such appearance

(See above, ). What is concealed is the nouminal ego since it, for Kant, is the actor

who functions to constitute time. Turning to Husserl, we cannot say that behind the

appearing ego, there is concealed a second, the first being "the mere appearance" of the

latter. The acting ego is inseparable from its appearance since, as a central ego, it

requires the temporalization which makes it appear as a middle point.

This may be put in terms of Husserl's statement that the actual ego, "the living

pole ... is exhibitable in reflection as anonymous, as functioning." Anonymity, here, does

not point back to a non-appearing self, but rather to a process which is prior to the self.

The appearance of the self is not the latter's concealment, but rather its individualization.

Thus, the individual ego appears as the "place" of temporalization; it appears as the point

where time wells up. With this, the original functioning which establishes the "living

pole" is exhibited as the ego's own functioning, i.e., as the streaming of its cogito. With

regard to the anonymity of the original functioning, which is that of a giving which is

distinguished from what is given, this, too, is exhibited in the ego's phenomenal being. It

is exhibited by the central ego's lack of self-transcendence. As the place of the streaming

of the cogito, it is not "over against itself," but rather appears as the point where

transcendence and, hence, givenness first emerge. We can also note that, fixed as it is

between the past and the future, the ego appears, not just as a primal welling up but also

as "a stationary and remaining phenomenon." Here, it mirrors the constant nowness and

the timelessness of the ultimate source of time. The latter, we recall, is stationary or

invariant since it is prior to the time which is required for change. In all this, the

presence of the phenomenal being of the subject does not conceal, but rather manifests,

the features of its source. For Husserl, then, the "living pole" exhibits itself as

anonymous and functioning since these are the conditions for its existence as my living

pole. The conditions point back to what is prior to such existence, but not individually
 Notes
309

prior. Thus, appearance and reality are not to be considered as having distinct referents,

i.e., as assignable to two different entities, one somehow standing behind the other.

What we confront is simply the process which results in a self, a process whose

characteristics and origin become exhibited when we examine this self's functioning.

Let us put this in terms of another description by Husserl of this functioning:

The whole primal welling up, amidst the streaming away [of the past] and the streaming
towards of what is to come, is the unity of a stationary and remaining primal
phenomenon. The welling up is a stationary and remaining change, the primal
phenomenon of my "I act" ("Ich tue") in which I am a stationary and remaining ego and,
indeed, am the actor of the "nunc stans." I act now and only now, and I "continuously"
act (Ms. B III 9, p. 25, Oct. - Dec., 1931).

This passage takes my appearance as an actor of the nunc stans as a feature of my

stationary streaming. I appear to act insofar as "amidst" the "streaming away" and

"streaming towards" of the past and the future, there is a stationary point of passage, a

point where the welling up of time appears. In other words, action is manifest at the

place through which time appears to stream and in which its moments appear to well up

as present and actual. Insofar as this is my place, the welling up appears as the welling

up of my action. It appears as the action of the cogito of my central ego. Given that this

ego is, itself, established by the streaming of what comes to be taken as its cogito, we can

see why it is never without its cogito. The central ego is not just the place of the

streaming of the cogito, it is also the place which is established by what, in this very

establishment, comes to be regarded as its "I do." Thus, situated in this place, which is

that of the appearing nunc stans, it "continually" acts. Indeed, the cessation of its action

would be its own loss of place, i.e., its dissolution as a central ego. Returning to our

comparison with Kant, we can see why, in this context, the appearing actor is the same as
 Notes
310

the actually existing actor. The latter, qua individual, is not a nouminal subject which is

somehow to be seen as "behind" the streaming of its acts. His existence is actually co-

given with such streaming. Thus, when we search for something behind the appearing

action, we do not find a self at all. We find what is prior to every individual entity or

process. This, in fact, is why this prior factor's predicates are predicates of the appearing

individual. Individuals cannot be predicated of individuals. What can be predicated is

that which is common to many individuals, a one which appears in the many. When we

apply this to the original now in its relation to the phenomenal being of subjects, we do

not just claim that its pre-individual processes are the common origin of such being. We

also claim that its processes appear within it, i.e. appear as features predicable of its

individual existence.

The result of the above is that we can predicate timelessness of the appearing

ego. This, however, does not rule out this ego's undergoing a certain temporalization.

Because it cannot exist without its cogito, it must "continuously act." The result of this

action is its extended temporal environment, an environment in which it can be seen as

"co-temporalized." In Husserl's words:

In the constancy of the primal phenomenon in which I am the active now, there
springs forth the act as a temporalized process. In its temporality, I myself have
my position in time. I am, in a certain sense, a co-temporalized ego. With the
extended egological act, I have my extension, my temporal duration. Thus, I am
given to myself as an existent extended through time -- streamingly given as what
has just past away and yet persistingly exists. This means that I am given to
myself as the "nunc stans" which is presently graspable, capable of being
experienced, thematized by me; this, in new acts which, when I allow them to
actually spring forth from me, become immediately temporalized, and so on again
and again (Ms. B III 9, pp. 25-26).
 Notes
311

We can explicate this passage in terms of our assertion that the cogito is the temporal

appearance of the functioning ego. The cogito's welling up is this ego's exhibition when,

in its functioning, it assumes the position of the active now. The welling up is the

exhibition of this now's production of time. Concretely this means that my givenness as

active, i.e., as the welling up of the cogito, is the givenness of the streaming away of my

acts from myself. The self-temporalization this involves results in my temporal self-

transcendence and, with this, in my becoming "objective" to myself. In other words,

when viewed in terms of the temporal environment which is its result, my streaming can

be regarded as temporally extended. Since this streaming is my temporal appearance, I

can say that "I am given to myself as an existent extended through time." The result is

my self-constitution as an objective, persisting being. This, by implication, is my

constitution as a concrete, individual being in time. When Husserl, in this context,

speaks of his being "presently graspable" as a nunc stans, his reference is to this

objectively extended temporal being. More precisely, it is to the nunc stans which stands

over against him as he recalls his past action. As we earlier put this, "In all

remembrances of my past acts, I always appear as occupying the here and the now of

such acts" (See above, ). It is as their 0 point that my being as a nunc stans can be

"thematized" -- i.e., be made the subject of an act of identification which brings together

the self I recall and the self I am. The possibility of such identification does not cancel

my central anonymity, since whenever I confront myself in recollection, the self I recall

is one who could not, when he functioned, grasp his central being. Thus, even when I do

thematize my extended being, I still appear as the anonymous center of such being. This

center can be said to "persist" through the"times" which are recalled by me, since, in

every remembrance, I always appear as the self-same place where the streaming seems to

originate.
 Notes
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§7. The Levels of Subjective Being

We can explore the deeper nature of this thematization by restating two items

from our last section. The first is the essential anonymity associated with my lack of

self-transcendence when I regard my present, "central" being. The second is the

constitution of my being-at-the-center through the constitution of my centering

environment. If we ask how these two fit together, then, as indicated in our last section,

we must say that the ego's constitution is its individualization. It is the determination of

anonymity into what each ego can call "this, my anonymity." This conclusion may be

put in terms of the fact that the nunc stans (or constant temporal center) is not directly

graspable. It is apprehended only insofar as it is constantly undergoing objectification in

successive time. In Husserl's words, the apprehension is through "acts ... which become

immediately temporalized." Thus, the ego is apprehended as something which

"externalizes" or "expresses" itself in its temporalized act -- i.e., in the streaming cogito.

The latter places it in time -- i.e., in a surrounding temporal environment; and it is only in

terms of such placing that the ego can be thematized as the place of the cogito.

Placed in time, it constantly escapes from this positioning in order to remain at

the center of its environment. Its placing and its escape from place give it its status as the

now between the streaming past and future. Together they make it into the place of the

streaming understood as the welling up of time from time's "midpoint." Another way of

expressing this is to say that my being an ego in the central now requires both the

objectivity of the constituted as well as the anonymity involved in this now's departure

from the objectively known -- i.e., the objectively constituted in time. What I can

objectively grasp is, first and foremost, my stream of consciousness. The latter is

something which I can characterize as a "this." Thus, for Husserl, it is "in relation" to

this stream, that the ego can be characterized as this ego -- i.e., as "a numerical singular"

(See Ideen II, Biemel ed., p. 110). Its singularity involves its relation to a singular,
 Notes
313

knowable stream. Now, because this relation is that of its being the stream's center, the

ego's anonymity is also required. Anonymity -- as implying its departure from the

constituted -- gives it the temporal distances which are needed for the stream to

objectively appear. Without such departure, it itself would not be constantly situated at

the appearing stream's center. The ego is, thus, a singular by virtue of an essential

anonymity which makes it the anonymous core of a knowable, objective stream. With

this, its constitution becomes understood as the specification of anonymity in terms of a

knowable and singular stream.

For Husserl, of course, the full notion of my subjectivity involves all three of its

aspects: ego, cogito, and cogitatum. It therefore includes anonymity, streaming, and

constituted, objective sense. Their relation can, perhaps, best be seen through the image

of peeling an onion. Let us take the outer layers as representing my fully constituted

sense as a being in the world, i.e., my sense as an objective, persisting being. Peeling off

a few leaves, I find as a presupposition for this sense or cogitatum the fact that "I am

given to myself as an existent extended through time -- streamingly given as what has

just past away and yet still persistingly exists" (Ms. B III 9, pp. 25-26). Proceeding

further, I find "the primal phenomenon in which I am the active now." This is the

welling up of the moments of time which yield my being as the cogito -- i.e., my

phenomenal being as "the actor of the 'nunc stans'" (Ibid.). From this streaming, I pass to

the place of the streaming, the nunc stans or stationary now in which the streaming

appears as a welling up. This nunc stans is the very center of the onion. Yet, objectively

regarded, it is nothing at all. Once the layers which define it have been peeled away, I

am confronted with sheer anonymity. Regarded together with the surrounding layers, it is

still this, my anonymity. Without such layers, the this and the my fall away. Thus, it is

no longer viewed as the anonymous, stationary center of the flowing time which I have
 Notes
314

experienced. It is rather the now considered as stripped of its association with every

given temporal field.

The stationary quality of this now is absolute. It is not, as before, a quality

which follows upon our taking up of a particular standpoint in the constitutive relation --

that of the "central ego" in a constituted field. In fact, insofar as we have bracketed (or

"peeled away") the surrounding layers of constituted time, the relation of constitution has

itself been bracketed. With this, even the now's action of constituting the temporal field,

i.e., the phenomenon of its welling up, loses its sense. Such welling up cannot be seen as

a "departure" or "letting loose" since we have bracketed the transcendence, the distance

which is the correlate of such departure. The central ego, with its central anonymity,

must of course, be seen as constituting. It only exists by virtue of the constitution which

both establishes it as a center and, by virtue of this, makes it appear as a central source

point. The same, however, cannot be said of the now whose anonymity has been stripped

of all determination by a streaming field. Its sheer anonymity is devoid of every

essential necessity -- including that which would require us to consider it as constituting,

Placed in time, it will, as a matter of essential necessity, escape from this place. It will

appear as a welling up, a letting loose from what will come to be regarded as the place of

the central ego. There is, however, no necessity that such placing shall occur.

The same point can be made by noting that through an analysis of the essence of

"now," we can assert that the now in time is the appearance, the objective expression of

the original, anonymous now. We cannot, however, conclude from this that the original

now must appear, i.e., must have an objective expression. This follows because, when

we bracket constituted time to directly regard its origin, we lose the sense of the now "in

time." The time in which the now is placed has been peeled away. As we put this in

describing the reduction, the now which is uncovered does not pertain to a moment

which "slips into the past." Thus, it cannot be seen as transcending this moment as the
 Notes
315

latter departs and, hence, as remaining "a present between the past and the future" (See

above, ). Certainly the reduction, in its penultimate moment, does exhibit the now

as "primally temporalizing," i.e., as "primally generating" through its welling up.

Welling up is exhibited by regarding, in the context of the present, what appears to transit

through the present -- i.e., the moments of constituted time. When, however, we abstract

from all consideration of such moments, even the phenomenon of their constitution as a

welling up or letting loose disappears. The now is primally generating; but its own

being, as revealed by the final moment of the reduction, does not demand that it be such.

Like the alphabet of contents, its being is independent of its constituted results. Thus, its

stationary presence is not a stationary being-at-the-center, a feature which demands the

placing and escape from place which characterizes the central ego. Existing prior to its

constitutive results, the now's stationary presence requires no constitutive action at all.

Stripped of all relation to a temporal field, the now that remains as our residuum

can be said to be unique. There is no "present" beyond itself which would allow it to be

seen as a one among many. Its stationary quality includes,then, the notion that there is

nothing beyond itself into which it could move or be placed. We can also say that since

as all the moments of time outside itself have been bracketed, this now represents, in its

presence, the whole of time. By definition, such a whole cannot "become" or change

itself into another time. To add a further element to its description, we note that this

reduced now is both pure "presence" and pure "absence." This description is not a

contradiction since the reference of these terms are different. "Absence" refers to the

lack of objective presence; it is the absence of entities understood as beings within time.

Their absence is a result of the absence of an absence, i.e., the absence of those temporal

distances which would allow temporal beings to appear. Here, we may take the peels of

the onions as representing constituted layers of being. When we do so, this nothingness

at the heart of the onion signifies a nothingness at the heart of being. Its is the absence of
 Notes
316

individual beings (Seienden). To turn to the other term of our description, we observe

that this absence or nothingness is, itself, a result of the residuum's (the reduced now's)

sheer, unique presence. It is a function of its uniqueness insofar as that which does not

have a present beyond itself does not allow of the temporal distance -- the "opening," as

it were -- into which a being could appear. Thus, if we assert that being (Sein), as

opposed to individual beings (Seienden), is understood as presence, we must take this

objective nothingness as a feature of the absolute, unconditioned being of the residuum.

It is, in other words, a feature of its ousia (or being) understood as parousia ( or

presence).6

A further element must be added if our image of the onion is to represent the

relation of the layers of subjective being. The image is static while the relation is

dynamic. We must, then, imagine our onion as set in motion, as constantly moving

outward from its anonymous core. This motion represents the continuous pasage from

ego to cogito to cogitatum. Temporally, it represents the passage from what Husserl

calls the "non-temporal" or "super temporal now" to the "active now" and, from thence,

to the now that is regarded as fixed in the order of time. Each of these notions of the

now corresponds to a particular notion of the subject -- the subject regarded as ego or

cogito or cogitatum. The actively functioning subject involves all three. More

precisely, its temporalization involves it in a continuous transition from one to the next.

Thus, the cogito appears as a streaming which fixes itself in the cogitatum --i.e., in a

stable, persisting unity of sense. Similarly, the ego appears as that which "expresses"

itself in its acts. Indeed, insofar as it is experienced as objectifying or incarnating itself

in time, it can be "thematized" as a point of passage between the non-temporal and the

temporal. The ego can be taken as the place where anonymity transforms itself into

what can be temporally grasped.

 Notes
317

The above allows a certain insight into Husserl's remarks on the uniqueness of

the ego. At issue in our discussing these was the referent of his assertion: "In an

absolute sense, this ego is the only one". Is this ego mine, or is the referent to something

which surpasses me? In a certain sense, we cannot directly answer this question. Insofar

as I thematize my ego as a point of passage, I take myself as standing between what is the

"only one" and what is one among many. For Husserl, as we stated, the uniqueness of

the ego is tied to its anonymity. Its is uniquely singular insofar as it is not objectively

present but, rather, a "presupposition" for objective presence. In other words, its unique

singularity is a function of its absence from the realm of temporally constituted,

individual beings. Thus, to the point that the ego is temporally incarnate, it is not

uniquely singular. The constituted ego has its "temporal position," its "extension" in

time. Regarded in terms of the objective, temporal continuum, it can be taken as

expressing just one of many possible positions or extensions. Turning to the thematically

given ego, we see that it has neither the numerical singularity of being just one among

many nor the unique singularity of being "the only one." It is at this borderline of a

process that begins in uniqueness and ends in individuality. In other words, as the place

of the streaming, I am between the designations: "one in many" and "the only one."

Thus, because my own status is ambiguous with regard to such terms, I cannot

unambiguously state my relation to "the only one."

If I attempt to place my being on one side or the other of this divide, I still

cannot escape this ambiguity. As we cited Husserl, "I exist in the streaming creation of

transcendence, of self-transcendence" (Ms. C 7 I, p. 5, June-July 1932). What this means

is that I have to say that "it is from me that time is constituted." Yet, I also have to claim

that my full subjectivity involves my being a result of this constitution. Insofar as my

being involves my functioning core, it is, as Husserl says, a "surpassing" being

(Übersein). Thus, concretely taken, I am transcendency in motion. Existing in the

 Notes
318

process which creates transcendence, I exist in the constant motion which proceeds from

anonymity and uniqueness to objectivity and individuality. This cannot be otherwise if I

include the ground of time and if the very process which moves me from ego to cogito

and, thence, to cogitatum is temporalization. My temporalization must result in my

progressive constitution as a this. In other words, as involved in the process of

temporalization, "I" am constantly on the move towards the self-limitation of temporal

incarnation. The description of this "I" is, then, necessarily ambiguous in the sense that

either we take it as borderline or, in attempting to unambiguously fix it, we find that it

constantly changes.

§8. Coincidence in the Ground--Coincidence with Others

The fact that the subject is constantly in motion does not mean that we cannot

perform the reduction, that we cannot, through its practice, regard the origin of this

motion. As part of the process of the subject's becoming incarnate, this origin can be

called "subjectivity." Thus, Husserl writes:

The reduction to the living present is the radicalized reduction to that subjectivity in
which everything is accomplished which is valid for me -- i.e., to that subjectivity in
which all ontological sense (Seinssinn) is sense for me as experientially apprehended,
obtaining sense. It is a reduction to the sphere of primal temporalization in which the
first and originary (urquellenmässige) sense of time comes forward -- time as the living,
streaming present. All further temporality -- be it "subjective" or "objective," whatever
be the sense which these words might take on -- receives its ontological sense and
validity from this present (Ms. C 3 I, pp. 3-4, 1930).

The explicit claim of this passage is that, if I do identify my subjectivity with the living

present, then I identify it with the source of ontological sense and validity for me. This

source is the temporal dimension of my coincidence with my ground. For Husserl, as

 Notes
319

we recall, this ground is "... the pre-being which bears all being, including even the

being of the acts and the being of the ego, indeed, the being of the pre-time and the

being of the streaming of consciousness [understood] as a being (Ms. C 17 IV, p. 4,

1930). Identified with subjectivity, this "pre-being" still holds its position as the origin

of all the ontological sense assumed by the words "subjective" and "objective."

With this, we have the claim which the context of the above passage makes

explicit. As the origin of the senses which pertain to all individual existents, the ground

(i.e., the living present) is prior to such. It is not, then, my living present. In Husserl's

words:

When, in self-meditation, I return to my living present in its full concreteness, the

living present as the primal ground and source of everything which presently and
actually obtains for me as a being, then I find that this present is not mine as
opposed to that of other human beings. And it is not mine as the present of an
existent [individual] human being with a body and a soul (Ms. C 3 I, p. 3).

In its concrete presence as a primal ground and source, it is, in fact, pre-individual.

To continue to call this ground "subjectivity" is, first of all, to remind oneself

that it is uncovered by the reduction. Within me -- i.e., within my subjectivity -- the

reduction discovers what is prior to me. I call this "subjectivity" insofar as it is at the

core of my functioning being. Its welling up results in the appearance of my welling up.

Having established my temporal environment, it becomes the welling up of the "middle

point," i.e., the welling up of the ego taken as the place of the cogito. This place, we can

say, is coincident with that which establishes it. It is coincident with its source, which

means that it is coincident with that which is prior to the distinction between self and

others. As such, it does not just express the point of my coincidence with my ground. It

expresses my coincidence with Others -- in Husserl's words, "my 'coincidence'

 Notes
320

('Deckung') with Others on the original level of constitution, my coincidence, so to

speak, before there is constituted a world for myself and Others" (Ms. C 17 V, p. 30,

1931).

This coincidence is in terms of the source of the temporalization which, in

producing different, content laden environments, results in different egos. Each of the

latter can call this source "mine" since its welling up appears as his welling up. Yet the

central anonymity common to each place of this welling up still points back to a level of

mutual coincidence. Anonymity, as we have said, signifies a lack of self-transcendence.

Thus, each subject, in regarding his own central being, does not find those temporal

distances which would allow him to formulate the distinction between ego and object.

This means that he cannot speak of his Other as somehow standing over and against

himself. The source, when taken as prior to those temporal distances which result from

its streaming, must be regarded as prior to every thesis of objective being, every thesis of

individual, persisting being. Husserl puts this in terms of the atemporality or lack of

temporal extension of the ego pole. He writes:

There is, indeed, community [of self and Others] -- the word "coincidence" has,
unfortunately, the connotation of extended coincidence (Deckung in Extension), of
association ... [The ego's] life, its appearances, its temporalization have an immanent
extension in the stream's time, and so does that which is within the stream as something
materially, temporally constituted. Everything which is temporalized, everything
temporalized by the streaming modes of appearances within the immanent temporal
stream and then, once again, by the 'external' (spatial-temporal) appearances, has a unity
of appearance [and hence] a temporal unity, a duration. [But] the ego as a pole does not
endure. Therefore, also my ego and the other ego do not have any extensive distance in
the community of our being with each other. But also life, my temporalization, has no
distance from that of the Other (Ms. C 16 VII, pp. 5-6, May 1933).
 Notes
321

Our coincidence or community (Gemeinshaft) is, as indicated, our lack of self-

transcendence vis-a-vis our present being. It is the lack of those temporal distances

which could distinguish us.

The final assertion that not just ego poles, but also lives -- i.e., temporalizations

-- are in community returns us to Husserl's claim that we can speak of a "temporalization

of temporalizations, a temporalization of the primally temporalizing primordialities, i.e.,

an inner communion (Vergemeinshaftung) of the same" (Ms. C I, Sept. 22-23, 1934; HA

XV, p. 668). We, thus, have the asertion of "a single, stationary, primal aliveness -- that

of a primal present which is not a modality of time." This is "the aliveness of the totality

of monads" (Ibid.). The claim that monads temporalize and, hence, share a "life" in

common comes from the fact that we cannot distinguish them once we limit our regard to

the source of their temporalization. Our temporalizations could be distinguished if each

of us could assert that his temporalization was the result of his activity. For Husserl,

however, the reverse is the case. Each subject appears as individually active because of a

prior temporalization. It is the latter which results in his "phenomenal being" as a source

point, as a welling up within a specifying environment. When we bracket this

environment -- i.e., peel the onion -- what remains, as we noted, is a present which does

not have a beyond. The temporal distances which would allow us to distinguish this

present from other such presents have been stripped away; and, with this, we lose the

condition for regarding the ego as one among many actors. "His" action, in other words,

no longer possesses the temporal determinants which would make it his.

The claim of the above is remarkable. We search almost in vain for language to

describe it. Fink expresses it in terms of the "idea of a primal ego, a primal subjectivity,"

one which is "prior to the distinction" between self and Others (See note 1 to the

Introduction). This idea is not a metaphysical abstraction, but rather something which

the reduction exhibits. The latter displays the uniqueness of the functioning which
 Notes
322

results in the plurality of individual lives considered as temporally extended, persisting

phenomena. Following Fink, we can, thus, say that the "primal ego" is the ego of

coincidence, the coincidence of the anonymous centers of these extended lives. We can

say that the welling up of these centers, when differentiated by differing contents, results

in the plurality of persisting lives; yet, before this differentiation, we really cannot speak,

in the plural, of centers at all.

Husserl, himself, chooses the language of "modes" of the "absolute." "The

absolute itself," he writes, "is this universal, primordial present" -- i.e., the present in

which egos are in coincidence (Ms. C I, HA XV, p. 668). Each individual, temporally

extended life is seen as a "mode," a way in which the absolute expresses itself in a given,

persisting subjectivity. This language, we may recall, appears in a position which we

noted in our third chapter (See above, ). There, the absolute is seen as the "life"

which individuals live and temporally express. We, thus, have the concept of "the

absolute unendingly persisting in the unending changes of its modes, at first through

ordinary death and birth, but also through the birth and death of humanities ..." (Ms. C 17

V, p. 47, 1931). In itself, however, the absolute does not persist. It persists only in its

constituted, temporalized expressions. The latter endure, i.e., have their defined "life

times." The absolute, like the ego poles whose coincidences it expresses, is prior to such

enduring. Thus, "persistence" applies immediately to individual lives and only mediately

to the absolute insofar as it is their "aliveness." Husserl uses the word, erfüllen -- to fill

up, impregnate, fulfill, accomplish or realize -- to express the relation between the two.

He writes:

The absolute is "now," persisting in the streaming changes of its modes. Awakeness,
sleep, death as [its] modes. Eternity, non-temporality, and temporality. The all-temporal
identity of structure; the invariant forms of the totality of temporality and the
temporalized. What is is invariably stationary and remaining fills up (erfüllt), stationary
 Notes
323
and remaining, a transcendental-absolute egological community. It accomplishes
(erfüllt) a stationary-remaining coexistence of egological subjects of an experiencing (or
conscious) life; this, in the stationary and remaining streaming of a primal present (Ibid.,
pp. 21-22).

Interpreting Husserl, we can say that the absolute's "aliveness" (Lebendigkeit) refers to

its constant generation of the moments of time. It is the process of temporalization

considered at its origin. What this process "fulfills" or "accomplishes" is, first of all, the

creation of those temporal distances which result in the "over and against" of objectivity

and, hence, distinguish each ego, qua subject, for all that is not itself. The process is,

secondly, the accomplishment of the very persistence through time by virtue of which the

absolute can be said to persist "in" its temporalized modes.7

§9. Coincidence and Primal Empathy

The notion that there is no extensive distance between ego poles raises the

question of empathy. Such poles exist in a streaming present, a present that manifests the

"aliveness" just defined. Husserl asks: "Does there also pertain to this [present] empathy

understood as a primal empathy -- not the empathy which is explicating -- but rather a

primal intentionality, a manifestation of the continuity with Others ...?" (Ms. C 17 V, p.

32, 1931). The "explicating" empathy functions in the analogous transfer of sense to the

Other. It explicates the Other's bodily behavior by attempting to transfer to him my own

sense of self as an embodied subject. The question is whether there is an empathy before

this -- i.e., an empathy which exists before the constitution of the embodied behavior

which the second empathy interprets. The same question is put in terms of the

functioning of the present in which I exist, i.e., the functioning which is prior to the

realities which stand over and against me. Husserl asks: "Am I only conscious of Others
 Notes
324

in the way that I am conscious of other realities? Am I not conscious of Others in my

functioning ...?" (Ms. B I 22, V, p. 22, 1934).

These questions are only rhetorically posed. Their answer is known from the

start. Thus, for Husserl, once "I deconstruct [the constituted world] and return to the

primordial," I find that "in the realm of the primordial, there also belongs all my

empathy" (Ms. C 17 II, p. 2, ca. Jan. 1, 1931). At the center of my primordiality is my

functioning. Expressed in its terms, the assertion of empathy becomes the claim: "... in

the primally performing life of functioning, I am conscious of my "we" and non-

reflectively conscious of myself as a functioning ego" (Ms. B I 22, V, pp. 21-22). This

non-reflective self-consciousness refers to the distinction between consciousness taken

"as functioning and taken as an 'accomplishment' of this functioning." Husserl reminds

us that "the correlate of a performing is not [itself] a performing. The ego as a theme of

reflection, as a theme of the performance springing from reflection, is no longer the

primal, constantly performing ego who is non-reflectively aware of himself" (Ibid., p.

21). The focus of this non-reflective self-consciousness is, then, my anonymity. I am

non-reflectively aware of myself as a functioning which escapes every designation as a

nameable, objectively given "this." Thus, the claim that I am aware of Others in my

functioning is not a claim regarding an objective presence. The "we" is not present as a

constituted result of my functioning. It is not grasped through a synthesis of temporally

given, departing experiences which, in their departure, stand over and against my primal

functioning. The assertion is that both the "I" and the"we" are present in this functioning

quite apart from what it constitutes.

The nature of this presence can be specified by recalling Husserl's words:

"When ... I return to my living present ..., [it] is not mine as opposed to that of other

human beings" (Ms. C 3 I, p. 3). It is not one among many such presents, i.e., the

presents of many distinct subjects. Rather, it is uniquely one. Granting this, we can say
 Notes
325

with Husserl: "I experience Others and, naturally, with regard to myself, I have self-

experience. I discover that 'in my now, I experience the Other' and his now. I discover

my now and his now are existing in one ..." (Ms. C 17 I, Sept. 1931: HA XV, Kern ed.,

p. 332). This experience of Others is Husserl's "primal empathy," an empathy which is

prior to that which explicates the constituted, objective senses which pertain to self and

Others. At the basis of such senses is the functioning which constitutes them. At the

basis of this last is the unique living present in which all functioning poles exist in

coincidence. Empathy -- Ein-fühlung -- means literally feeling or experiencing in

another. Here, it is interpreted on the level where the functioning nows of ego poles are

seen as "existing in one" underlying now. Accordingly, to say that I experience Others in

my functioning is to say that when I am non-reflectively aware of myself, I am aware

that "my ego and the Other's ego do not have any extensive distance in the community of

our being together" (Ms. C 16 VII, p. 6). Because of this, there is a common constitution

of those senses which individual subjects explicate in later, less primordial acts of

empathy. That they do discover that they share senses in common points to a primal

empathy and its revelation of the common temporal origin of such senses.

The main point here is that subjects can experience themselves as grounds of the

world -- i.e., of its senses. They can grasp themselves, not as worldly individuals, but as

prior to such. Granting this, my self-experience as a functioning ground is also my

experience of Others insofar as the distinction, self and Others, does not yet obtain on the

level which is constitutively prior to individual givenness. We can, thus, say that the

assertion of an "I" is, on this level, the assertion of a "we" -- or, rather, it is the assertion

of neither considered as separate individuals. As Husserl expresses this:

I am the subject who produces the world which obtains for me. ... I am such, however, on
the underlying basis (Untergrund) of an intentional producing (Bildung) of pre-worldly
 Notes
326
being understood as a founding (Fundierung) of the latter. In this founding, my Others
first exist for me. In this [founding], primordial nature which is other (fremde) with the
ego who is other both achieve their existential obtaining through a modification
(appresentation). [In this founding], the ego is in coincidence with Others (Ms. B III 4,
pp. 65-66, caa. Sept. 1, 1933).8

Interpreting Husserl, we can say that before there is given the explicating empathy which

appresents the Other, the Other as other (as fremde) does not existentially obtain for me.

Before this, he only "exists," so to speak, in the coincidence which is at the origin of all

production understood as founding. Thus, it is only retrospectively that I can speak of a

"we" on the original level. What I require to do so is, as initially noted, a sense of the

motion of the reduction (See above, ). This is a motion which brings me from the

intersubjective world with its Others back to the original residuum. It is in terms of this

movement that I can see the residuum as containing my Others -- not explicitly -- but

rather implicitly as their ground. Otherwise expressed: When I reverse the sense of

direction of this movement, I see the residuum as productive. It is understood as engaged

in the process of founding or constituting the "pre-worldly being" which will ultimately

yield self and Others.

§10. Universal and Primordial Time

When we speak of an objective, common time, we think of a common ordering

of temporal positions, one which is the same for the objects we experience. Time is

considered as that in which things are ordered. Thus, according to their temporal

positions, events can be considered as successive or simultaneous. The same point holds

when we speak of the simultaneity of subjects and observe that their sense of the passing

of time seems to come from the changing, successive quality of their experiences. 9

Husserl writes: "In the broadest sense, the form of the universal coexistence of all the
 Notes
327

souls is the universal time which is contained within the souls themselves as experience

(Ms. C 17 I, Sept. 1931; HA XV, 334). Here, the assertion of a universal time becomes

that of a common timing of experiences. Each co-present subject experiences the world

"at the same time" as his Others, each experiences world-time as something common

insofar as the experiences of each have been simultaneously temporalized. Concretely,

this means that the experiences of each undergo change at the same equitable rate. For

each, a momentary experience changes into a just past experience an from thence into a

just, just past experience and so on in such a way that temporal coincidence obtains not

just in a shared present but also in the moments which preceded this. This simultaneous

temporalization is, of course, nothing other than Husserl's "temporalization of

temporalizations." To assert it is to assert "a temporalization of the primally

temporalizing primordialities, i.e., an inner communion of the same" (Ms. C I, HA XV,

p. 668).

The leading idea, here, is that of reduction. The claim of a universal objective

time is reduced to a corresponding claim about the experiences which constitute

objects. It becomes an assertion about the synchronization of subjects' experience.

This is seen as a temporalization of temporalizations. It is a temporalization of the

flowing and passing away of the experiences by which each subject obtains his sense of

the temporality of experienced objects. What is the phenomenological basis for this

synchronization? Can we reduce it to something which we directly experience? For

Husserl, the answer is provided by the reduction to the origin of time. At the basis of

our objective temporal coincidence is a pre-objective coincidence in the original now.

Our experience of our oneness in this now is also a primal empathy by which we grasp

the unity of our temporalizations. In Husserl's words:

 Notes
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... this universal time ... is a higher order time which has sprung from the intentional
coincidence of souls in their being for one another. The primal source point of this
temporal constitution is, for each, the experience of his primal modal present and the
ability of each to experience Others, other egos, other concrete monadic souls. It is the
ability, first of all, to "perceive" Others, i.e., the ability, within one's living present, to
experience Others in a primal manner and, with this, to experience the primal coexistence
of one's own and the Other's being (Ms. C 17 I, HA XV, 334).

For Husserl, subjects are in "intentional coincidence" by virtue of the fact that the

intentions they form are temporally coincident. This means that the experiences

constituting such intentions are timed together. It is because of this that they can be said

to simultaneously intend one and the same object. Now, the evidence for such objective

simultaneity is not, ultimately, a matter of such worldly phenomena as making

appointments and keeping them. A subject who always temporalizes his world faster or

slower than Others would not experience this on a worldly level. The flow of

experiences which gives him his sense of world-time would not per se contradict this

sense. What is required is our ability to experience, not the results, but the "primal

modal present" which is the source point of temporal constitution. It is the coincidence

of subjects in this present which makes their experience of this present an implicit

experience of Others. Thus, at the basis of an assertion of intersubjective time is an

experience of an underlying unity. It is an experience of the oneness of the present in

which each co-present subject functions as an experiencer.

We, thus, return to the remark we cited at the beginning of this chapter:

"Everything is one -- the absolute in its unity: the unity of an absolute self-

temporalization, the absolute in its temporal modalities temporalizing itself in the

absolute stream, the 'stationary aliveness' of the primal present, of the absolute in its

unity -- the unity of everything! -- which in itself temporalizes and has temporalized
 Notes
329

everything that is anything" (Ms. C I, HA XV, p. 668). This passage continues with a

listing of the results of this absolute temporalization: the "'human' totality of monads,"

"reason," and "history in the strict (prägnanten) sense." All of these are termed "levels"

of the absolute. They are such insofar as they are manifestations of its original unity.

Thus, humanity, understood as an interrelated totality of subjects who are "for one

another," is such by virtue of a common temporalization. The appearance of reason,

understood as a progressive unfolding and systematization of our common "logic of

experience" is also a result of the original unity of temporalization. So is history, taken

as a collective accomplishing of interrelated, human goals. None of this would be

possible without the coincidence of the intentions of subjects. This means that each

subject must be able to say, "In my multiple experiences [forming my intentions], I

experience a world in union (in eins) with Others, Others whom I co-experience as

existing in the world" (Ms. A V 5, March 7-9, 1930; HA XV, pp. 64-5). Husserl, in

seeking an evidential basis for this assertion, examines "my subjective temporality as the

form of my phenomena." He finds a "we-present, a we-past, a we-future." He then

asserts: "Everyone in his immanent present finds this immanent present in coincidence

with the present of every other person and finds it enclosed in the present as an

intersubjective present" (Ibid., pp. 65-66).

These last remarks are from a manuscript directed "to the beginning of the

'Second Meditation'" (Ibid., p. 64). It is as this point that the Meditations raises the

problem of transcendental solipsism. Thus, in the second section of this meditation,

Husserl writes of the phenomenology which results from the reduction: "Certainly, it

begins as a pure egology and as a science which, so it seems, condemns us to solipsism,

albeit a transcendental solipsism" (CM, Strasser ed., p. 69). The question he faces is

how, without abandoning the reduction, he can escape from this solipsism. Here, his

answer is that, temporally speaking, the experience uncovered by the reduction is not, at
 Notes
330

its lowest level, private or "merely" subjective. At this level, experience has a "we"

character, one corresponding to a "we-present." The answer, in other words, is the same

as that which can be drawn from a passage cited in our last section: "I discover that 'in

my now, I experience the Other' and his now. I discover my now and his now as existing

in one (in eins), so also my appearances and his, my appearing [object] as obtaining for

me and his [as obtaining for him], but both the same" (Ms. C 17 I; HA XV, 332). This

sameness is temporal. What is the same is the streaming departure of appearances, the

very departure which is at the basis of our sense of time. The object which is grasped as

a unity of the departing appearances is taken as that which persists in time, i.e., persists

through the temporal distances created by this constant departure. Thus, the temporal

sameness in our grasp of the appearing object is a function of the unity of our nows, i.e.,

of our having one and the same living present from which such departure is ascertained.

With this, we also have the temporal dimension of the answer to the objection:

Can I not think of an Other who is genuinely Other -- i.e., an Other whose constitutive

style is radically different from my own? As already noted, the lack of any objective,

worldly evidence to support this hypothesis does not dismiss it. My constitutive

processes might cover up those of the Other. Since my objective evidence is based on

such processes, I cannot expect it to point outside of itself to something radically

distinct. Against such a view, Husserl writes:

Every other ego possesses an egological structure, one which I apodictically grasp
as an essential structure within me. ... I cannot think of my Other as other, for --
in a primordiality and in a common, synthetically harmonious, intersubjective
world existing in this [primordiality of the] living present, in this [present's]
previous self-temporalization and in this [present's] apodictic anticipation of my
future -- there exists apodictically for me an intersubjective and objective world, a
world which contains all Others in the same style of being, the style of the living
present, etc. (Ms. K III 12, pp. 33-34, 1935).
 Notes
331

Reduced to its essentials, the claim of this passage is that I cannot think of an Other as

other and think of him as engaged in this living present. The givenness of the latter is, as

already noted, the givenness of a "we-present" and, with this, the givenness of a

"common ... intersubjective world existing in this living present." To affirm the genuine

otherness of the Other, I must, then, assert that his style of being is not that of my own --

i.e., is not a being-in-and-through the living present. For Husserl, such an assertion is

impossible. There is no factual basis which could give it any meaningful content. The

appeal, here, is not to my constituted worldly experience, but rather to the functioning

which is at the basis of all my constitution. 10

At the heart of my constitution is the fact of my living present. It is what I

affirm each time I assert that I presently function. Here, we may recall that facticity is

not something determined beforehand by the essence. It is what is given as a

prseupposition for all "free variation," conceived as a process of uncovering the essence

or eidos. Thus, I must take account of the constant factual givenness of my living

present in every thought which I can have of possible Others. In Husserl's words:

The possibilities of varying in imagination the eidos [of a possible ego] do not
float free in the air. They are rather constitutively related to me in my facticity,
in my living present which I factually live, the living present which I
apodictically encounter along with everything lying within it which can be
uncovered (Ms. K III 12, p. 35).

When, in thought, I attempt to eliminate the fact of this living present, I do not conceive

of a possible variant of myself, one which could stand as a conceivable alter ego. The

elimination of this fact is the elimination of my functioning. It is a cancellation of my

ego's aliveness. Given this, a conceivable Other who is alive, who is engaged in

functioning, must be an Other who exists in the living present. The same point holds,
 Notes
332

mutatis mutandis, for the Other's "egological structure" -- i.e., its "style of being" as

temporally constituting insofar as this is identified with "the style of the living

present."11

Carefully regarded, the "fact" of the living present is rather special. I can

conceive of its elimination with regard to my surrounding world; I can think of it as

ceasing to animate my acts. I cannot, however, vary this fact in the way that I can vary

other facts. Other facts have some given objectively representable content. In the free

play of fantasy, I can take the features or arrangements of these and imagine them

otherwise. Directly regarded, my living present offers no such opportunities. It "lives"

by transcending such objective features, by constantly being "ahead" of them. Because

of this, its life and its anonymity are one and the same. Thus, I cannot use it to imagine a

possible Other who is other in the fact of his living present. We essentially say the same

thing when we assert that I cannot vary my being in the living present so as to yield the

thought of a functioning Other who is not in the present of "my" functioning. Both

presents must be taken as the same since in the absence of any nameable content, there is

no possibility of a distinct "mine" and "thine." With this, Husserl's answer to the

solipsistic objection is, thus, seen to turn on an "absolute fact" which underlies and yet is

distinct from the nameable, objectively describable facts I can encounter.

§11. Contingency and the Distinction between Essence and Existence.

The distinction between the fact of the living present and all other facts I

encounter turns on a traditional, yet important, distinction. This is the difference

between essence and existence, i.e., between what a thing basically is and the fact that it

is.12 The underlying "what," defined as the essence, can be uncovered through the

process of free variation. The latter allows us to take a given fact and to distinguish

between the accidental and the essential. The accidental can be varied without changing
 Notes
333

the thing's being what it basically is --e.g., its being a spatial-temporal object. The

essential cannot. Thus, I cannot say that a spatial-temporal object can show itself only

from one side, that it has no "back." To admit this kind of variation is to cancel per se

the notion of its spatial-temporality. As indicated in our last section, this process of free

variation can be applied to every fact with a nameable, objective content. Given such

content, we can always proceed from the accidental to the essential. It is only when

confronting the fact of the living present that such variation becomes impossible. The

present's lack of objective content thus points to an absence of any uncoverable essence.

It indicates that this present does not tell us what a thing is. In characterizing a thing as

present, we simply pronounce on whether it is, i.e., on the fact of its being presently or

actually existent.

A strict phenomenological account of this distinction can be given by recalling

Husserl's "transcendental reinterpretation" of the essence. The latter is taken as

expressing the "essential connections" of experience which must be present if a thing

with a particular essence is to appear . In other words, the essence is a rule for ordering

our experiences in time, a rule which is required if a particular, synthetically constituted

"what" is to be experienced. Thus, if I am to experience a spatial-temporal object, my

experiences must be connected so as to form a perspectivally ordered series. The essence

of a spatial-temporal object, qua spatial-temporal, is the rule for the perspectival

unfolding of its contents in time. Now, if we say that an object exists, it is "because,

constantly becoming, it passes from presence to presence." As we recall, an existent or

entity (Seiendes) signifies a "persisting presence" (See above, ). It exists because it

is now and continues to be now. This means that its existence or actuality is such

nowness. As we cited Husserl, nowness per se is the "primally generating," if

anonymous, cause of an entity's being present and actual. "Itself streaming," it is

"actuality in the strict worldly sense of 'being present'." "It is actuality in the proper
 Notes
334

sense as that which is primally productive." "Primally temporalizing," it is the act of the

entity's existence since its action of producing the distinct moments of time allows an

entity to be continuously now as a persisting presence (See above, ). Granting this,

a concrete being is both existence and essence. Existence (or continued nowness) is

required if it is to pass from presence to presence. Its essence is required as an ordering

of contents involving this passage. What existence does is make the essence into a rule

that obtains for an actually occurring temporal passage. It becomes an actually obtaining

"what" -- i.e., a rule for successively ordering contents which is embodied in a given,

persisting presence.

The fact that both existence and essence are required for an entity to be does not

mean that they are the same. Existence, by its very anonymity, is other than the

nameable essence and, hence, is other than the finite entity which possesses a definite

essence. Let us put this in terms of the persisting presence of a spatial-temporal thing.

This entity persists through the departure of its contents in time. The fact of this

departure results in its objectivity. The order of the departure yields its essence -- i.e., its

being this rather than that type of objectivity. This departure, however, is a departure

from that stationary or non-departing nowness whose action is the act of existence, the

very "to be" of the thing. Thus, the thing is objectively present with a definite essence in

its constant separation -- in its dynamically flowing otherness -- from the act of its

existence. Another way of expressing this is to say that a thing exists only through a

process which constantly surpasses its given being. The process is that of

temporalization. Temporalization surpasses the given by constantly giving -- i.e., by

constantly adding to the given yet another now. This next now is required for a thing's

continual presence; yet it is not inherent in it. The persisting thing is only present

through its departure into pastness. But this ongoing departure requires the continual

production of additional moments which, as they become successively past, increase the
 Notes
335

pastness of those which preceded them. As we just said, the next now or moment is not

inherent in the thing's given unity. The latter consists of already given contents and

temporal positions, which means that the addition of moments surpasses what is already

given in an objective sense. With this, we can say that temporalization is a giving which

both surpasses the objective givenness of the thing and, in so doing, brings the latter

about.

The contingency of a thing follows as a matter of course from the above. What

is given is always given as contingent insofar as it relies on an addition to itself for its

continuing givenness. Thus, its "to be," understood as the welling up of time in the

stationary streaming now, is not inherent in the thing's objective givenness. Its

contingency is its dependence in its "to be" on a non-inherent or "external" ground. This

contingency is present in the whole of nature considered in its objective character and

essential knowability. As Husserl writes in 1935: "But isn't it apparent that the being

(the actual existence -- die wirkliche Existenz) of nature is an open pretension" (Ms. K

III 2, p. 9). For Husserl, the pretension involves the fact that "time and world are

temporalized in the absolute which is the stationary streaming now" (Ms. C I, Sept. 21-

22, 1934; HA XV, Kern ed., p. 670). It involves the fact that "the absolute" -- conceived

as a pure act -- "is nothing but absolute temporalization" (Ibid.). The pretension is that

this temporalization will continue. Nothing in the objectively given world can assure us

of its continuance. This follows from the fact that what is at issue is not its givenness,

but rather giving -- i.e., the constant addition to such givenness.

Since the essence of a thing pertains to the ordering of its contents in already

constituted time, it pertains to the objective realm -- i.e., to the realm of what is already

given. As such, its consideration does not remove this "pretension." An appeal to the

essential structures of givenness cannot establish that the addition to givenness will

continue -- i.e., that the given will continue to be present and actual. As Husserl writes
 Notes
336

of the laws springing from the essences of things: "These laws ... cannot pronounce

with regard to an actuality -- i.e., whether or not there exists an actuality which

corresponds to them. Essential laws possess a meaning for the real if something real

(an individual being) can be given which falls under the essence, the ideas" (Ms. D 13

XXI, p. 26, 1907-09). In other words, "... such laws ... only specify facts with regard

to possibility" (Ms. F I 14, p. 49, June 1911).

The same point is expressed in terms of the transcendental logic which delineates

the formal relations between essences once the latter have undergone their

"transcendental reinterpretation": "Transcendental logic, which as transcendental is led

back to consciousness, contains the grounds for a possible nature, but none for an actual

nature" ("Beilage XX," 1908, EP I, Boehm ed., p. 394). As we recall, the original

context of these remarks was Husserl's stress on "factual nature and factual

consciousness". Factiticity was ultimate in the sense that it was not determined

beforehand by the essence conceived as a rule for connecting experiences. The obtaining

of this rule was considered as dependent on the factual -- i.e., actually occurring -- course

of experiences. We can now say that it is ultimately dependent on the fact of the

temporalization which underlies this actual occurring. When we objectively consider an

entity's essence, we bracket this fact. We suspend the consideration of the giving by

which the entity persists. As such, in considering its essence, we abstract from the

consideration of its existence.13 Thus, an esence, regarded in itself, is no longer a rule

for a presently obtaining temporal passage. It has, as we indicated, a hypothetical

character. It asserts: if an entity of a certain type is to be given, then a certain ordering

of contents in time is required. The giving of the moments of time is not a result of this

rule; it cannot be derived from it. On the contrary, it is what the rule itself presupposes

for its actual obtaining. Thus, when Husserl writes, "... the phenomenological a priori

consists simply in the essences of the types of consciousness and in the a priori
 Notes
337

possibilities and necessities based on these essences," the "necessities" referred to are

only hypothetical. They only specify the "possibilities" of essences being given. The

fulfillment of such possibilities requires "the absolute which is the stationary streaming

now." It requires, in other words, the act of existence -- the fact of the "primal

temporalization" -- which fulfills the essence by progressively making it be in time as the

essence of a persisting entity.14

The situation is no different when we turn from the given to speak of giving in

relation to its results. Placed in the given of time, the original now will escape from this

place. As a matter of essential necessity, it will appear as a giving, i.e., as a welling up

or a "letting loose" from what will come to be regarded as the place of the central ego.

This, however, does not mean that the central ego must appear. The most we can say is

that if a central ego is given, then it must appear as a "middle point," i.e., as a central

"source point" of constitution. Similarly, we can say that if the original now is to appear

as a moment of time, this appearance will not be such as it fix it; it will not make it the

last such appearance. This, however, does not remove the "pretension" that

temporalization will continue. It does not allow us to assert that the original now must

appear, that it must have a relation to the given. Regarded in itself, the original now

presents a sheer anonymity, one that is devoid of any tie to the given. Its otherness from

that which it objectively constitutes means that, in directly regarding it, we have no

phenomenological basis for saying that it must "give" -- i.e., that its constitution is a

categorical as opposed to a hypothetical necessity.

The fact that the original now need not constitute does not mean that it need not

be. This would only follow if its being were dependent (somehow grounded) on its

results. For Husserl, however, the reverse is the case. The now, conceived as a

dimension of the absolute, has an absolute necessity, a necessity corresponding to its

complete independence. As Husserl puts this: "The absolute has its ground in itself; and,
 Notes
338

in its ground-less being (grundlosen Sein), it has its necessity as the single 'absolute

substance'" (Ms. E III 9, Nov. 5, 1931; HA XV, Kern ed., p. 386). This statement can be

understood in terms of the principle, "What is ultimately constituting is not, itself,

constituted" (Ms. B I 14, XI, Sept. 1935, p. 19). Thus, considered as ultimately

constituting, the absolute is without a prior constitutive ground and can be called

"ground-less" (grundlos). It can, in other words, be considered as a self-grounded or

self-caused "absolute substance," one having "its ground in itself." Its action, then, is

purely spontaneous. It is not contingent on the obtaining of anything outside of itself.

This means, as Husserl immediately adds: "Its necessity is not an essential necessity

which permits the contingent. All essential necessities are moments of its 'fact'

('Factums'), are modes of its functioning in relation to itself ..." 15 The functioning

referred to is that of primal temporalization. The latter results in temporal transcendence

and, with this, in objectivity understood as the quality of standing over and against a

subject. Insofar as they are objective, all essential necessities are "moments" of the

absolute's fact" -- i.e., are dependent on the fact of its functioning. This, of course, is

why such necessities are hypothetical, why they only express possibilities. For actual

existence, we require the temporalization which turns a possible ordering of contents in

time to an actual ordering. The fact of such temporalization is, thus, prior to all essential

necessities as that which allows them, whatever their particular character, to be actually

obtaining necessities. It is in this sense that Husserl can speak of "the absolute" as "lying

at the basis of all possibilities, all relativities, all limitations, giving them their sense and

being" (Ms. C I, Sept. 21-22, 1934; HA XV, Kern ed., p. 669). With regard to

temporalization, the necessity of the absolute is not that of a specific possibility or

specific set of objectively given entities. It is rather that of the presence which makes

such be -- this no matter what they are. Thus, what we confront in the temporal

dimension of the absolute is not a necessity based on essences, but rather one based on
 Notes
339

existence. In Husserl's words, we confront the necessity of "actuality, itself streaming, in

the strict worldly sense of being present."

Unlike the essential necessity "which permits the contingent" -- which itself is

contingent on temporalization and which leave open contingency in areas not specified

by its general rules -- this existential necessity is all embracing. To express this

tautologically, everything that is is. The necessity of its being is prior to the obtaining of

any further necessities. Considered as the necessity of nowness per se, nowness in its

otherness from objectively given entities and their essential structures, it is an absolute

necessity. We may express this in terms of the anonymity of such nowness. We can, as

we said, conceive of something being different by varying in imagination its objective

features. The absence of objective content in nowness per se means that we cannot in

this process conceive of it as other than what it is. Can we conceive of it as simply not

being? We can, after all, imagine the non-existence, the permanent absence from

nowness, of an entity which once was present. Against such a supposition is the

assertion that such nowness is "not a modality of time." Considered in itself, i.e., apart

from the time it constitutes, it is absolutely stationary. Thus, its non-temporality is its

being constantly present. It is its being, in an absolute sense, a "nunc stans." As

stationary, it cannot change. What we have been calling its "existential necessity" is, in

fact, its inability to depart from the constant nowness which it is. That which can so

depart is what it constitutes. Indeed, the latter, as "persisting presence" has its being

through departure. This is its lack of existential necessity. We can, thus, say that given

that anything is present and actual, the original now must be. Its being is such that it

must always be -- and this, unchangingly. The reverse proposition does not hold. The

being of this now does not imply that its constituted results, which lack its necessity,

must continue to obtain.

 Notes
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As we have delineated it, the situation of the absolute now is exactly parallel to

that of the absolute conceived as an alphabet of contents. Both embody a complete

independence with regard to the results of constitution. This, indeed, is why the

reduction, in bracketing these results, can uncover them. Requiring "no thing in order

to exist," they can be viewed apart from every constituted reality. We can also say that

both are "ground-less" -- i.e., are not the result of any prior constitutive activity. They

are not determined beforehand, which means that both may be considered to be

"ultimately factual." Their independence, thus, signifies, a certain pure spontaneity.

Not tied to what they may result in, they are also not determined by any ground or

cause to result in any particular given. In other words, their status is such that they can

only result in contingencies in the sense that what may follow from them has, in itself,

no necessity. Since what they have already constituted does not determine what they

can constitute, their action always contains the possibility of newness. It can surpass

what has already been given.

These common features point back to the conclusion of our first section. The

alphabet, as the origin of content, and the original now, as the origin of time, are both

aspects of the absolute which, in every sense, lies "at the basis of all possibilities." They

are features of the absolute as the possibility of all possibilities. They are, in other

words, ways of regarding its action of grounding every possible relation between content

and time. Such relations may result in a synthetic whole -- i.e., a constituted given. But

they need not. As we said, the moments of time do not, per se, demand that they be filed

with some particular experiential content. The contents they bear could result in nothing

more than a "tumult," a chaos of experiences. If we ask why this is so, we have to say

that the moments, themselves, still have the anonymous character of their origin. They

are not contents, but rather containers of contents. As such, they lack the sensuous

quality, the given "what," which could allow us to draw a necessary relation between
 Notes
341

them and what they contain. Thus, there is no possibility of applying a logic of content

to this relation. This logic, we recall, specifies the dependence of one type of content on

another. It asserts, for example, that if pitch is given, then loudness must also be present.

Here, however, we are dealing with a relation between content and the presence which is

other than content. This otherness is a function of the moment's original anonymity. It

springs from the lack of content which allows it to have a relation to every possible

content. It can contain it without altering it. That this is so indicates something more

than the contingency of an entity's existence tout court. It implies the lack of necessity of

its what conceived as an ongoing relation between its content and time.

We cannot conclude this section without observing that although we have just

spoken of moments as containers, this does not imply that time, per se, consists of

discrete units. For Husserl, it does not proceed atomistically, but rather "streams."

Behind such streaming is the lack of any inherent distinction between time's moments.

Their what -- or rather their inherent lack of what -- is always the same. Because of this,

they form, not a collection, but rather a continuum. In a certain sense, such moments can

be said to bind a being together as it persists through time. They are its existence; and as

long as a thing does exist, it exists continually and not intermittently. This holds even

though, at every point, this existence remains contingent.

§12. The Contingency of the Monad

The question of the contingency of the monad can be raised in terms of its

factual character. What are the possibilities included in the fact that it exists? We can

set the context of this question by looking at Husserl's description of this fact:

The first thing, then, is the fact of the I am (ego). This fact, however, only exists in the
style of infinitely open possibilities which distinguish themselves through the actuality of
 Notes
342
life itself. All eidetic possibilities are, therefore, pre-contained (im voraus beschlossen)
in its style form. They are not individual determined (individuell bestimmt); but as [a
subject of] transcendental phenomenology, they are a priori constructable and
theoretically graspable (Ms. B I 13, VI, p. 3, Oct. 1, 1931).

To understand this passage, we must first observe that its referent is the method of free

variation. Husserl is discussing the "disengagement [of the essence] through pure

fantasy, the passing over into pure possibilities, the move to the pure ideas" (Ibid.). At

issue is the relation of "the fact of the I am" to the "pure possibilities" which essences or

"pure ideas" delineate. Now, the fact that I exist is the fact that I am in the stationary-

streaming present. The latter is "my living present which I factually live" (Ms. K III 12,

p. 35, 1935). Thus, when Husserl speaks of the "style form" of the fact that I am, his

reference is the ego's style of existing in and through this living present. Similarly, the

assertion that all eidetic possibilities are pre-contained in this style form is a claim that

they are pre-contained (or predetermined) by this present. With this, we can understand

Husserl's point that they are "not individually determined," but rather "distinguish

themselves through the actuality of life itself." Taking this "actuality" as the streaming

of time which proceeds from the present's "primal welling up," we can interpret this in

terms of our last section. The welling up of time is, we stressed, required if the essence

-- considered as a possible ordering of contents in time -- is to appear (or "distinguish"

itself) as an actual ordering of conscious life. This means that all eidetic (essential)

possibilities are "pre-contained" in the "style form" of the living present since if they

obtain, they must obtain through its determination, i.e., through the action of its style

form. That this action occurs without any necessary relation to a particular content

means that it does not determine the ordering of contents -- i.e., individually determine

the "what" of the essence.

 Notes
343

Let us restate our question in a more precise form. The passage we cited states

that "the fact of the I am -- i.e., the fact of the living present -- "... exists in the style of

infinitely open possibilities." Among the possibilities included in my existence are

those of birth and death. How do I understand this? How does the fact of the living

present include the contingency of a monad or concrete subject?

To understand Husserl's answer, we must distinguish between "the fact of the I

am," understood as the fact of the anonymous center of a monad, and the monad itself.

The full notion of a monad involves both the thought of a center and that of the content

laden time which surrounds it. Considered simply as centers, "monads," as Husserl

remarks, "can neither begin nor end." Indeed, so considered, "the transcendental totality

of monads is self-identical" (Ms. A V 22, p. 45, 1931). Such a totality is not a plurality

at all. It is simply the point of identity of monad within monad -- i.e., the point of

coincidence of their anonymous centers in the original present. This present, we stressed,

has a categorical necessity. It cannot begin nor end. If we were to assume that the death

of a monad meant this present's elimination, then the coincidence of monads would mean

that, with his death, all would die. Husserl, of course, does assert that "transcendental

totality of monads is contingent" (Ms. K III 12, p. 39, 1935). Yet, given the original

present's necessity, we cannot say that the contingency of monads is the latter's

contingency. Contingency pertains to monads insofar as they are the results of its

functioning. Concretely, this means that we do experience the death of Others without

our own demise. We continue functioning in the world while Others do not. For

Husserl, then, "death ... is an event in the world of humans, in the constituted world"

(Ms. A V 20, pp. 23-24, Nov. 18, 1934). It pertains to a monad qua constituted, i.e., it

pertains to its temporally extended, content laden life.

To see this contingency as arising from "the fact that I am," we must turn to

Husserl's account of birth and death. His starting point is the ego's being-alive, i.e., its
 Notes
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functioning. As we cited him, the living ego "acts, it posits its thesis; and this acting is a

letting loose from itself, a primal welling up ..." The welling up of this acting is

temporalization. Thus, before its being-alive, i.e., prior to its birth, such temporalization

does not occur. Husserl, accordingly, describes birth as a transition from a "primal sleep"

to a "primal awakening": The "primally sleeping ego" is "that which possesses nothing

as an existent and has nothing pre-given; it is, equally, an ego which is temporalizing

nothing and has not temporalized anything as an existent." Because of this, it is an ego

which "does not, in any sense, have an actual consciousness of anything and, thus, does

not have a habitual directedness to anything. Therefore, it is not even temporalized for

itself. In other words, my 'primally sleeping ego' or monad is nothing for itself ..." (Ms.

A VI 14, p. 7, 1930). This does not signify that this ego is nothing in itself -- i.e.,

nothing at all. What Husserl is describing is similar to the phenomenon that occurs in the

dreamless sleep which does not give any sense of the passage of time. To the point that

the sleeping ego does not temporalize -- and, hence, does not have a sense of departing

time -- it may be regarded as a life which is collapsed into its center. In other words, the

lack of its functioning implies its reduction to the now which is prior to all objective

temporalization. Stripped of its being for itself, its being in itself is its being in the

anonymous, original present. The latter remains with its categorical or absolute necessity

through all of its contingent expressions. Thus, to the point that the statements about the

"primally sleeping ego" have a referent, it is to that now concerning which Husserl

writes: "The absolute is 'now,' persisting in the streaming changes of its modes.

Awakeness, sleep, death as its modes" (Ms. C 17 V, p. 21, 1931). 16

With the mode of awakeness, we do have temporalization. The ego's birth is the

beginning of its "primal temporalization." The departure in time brought about by this

temporalization creates those temporal distances in which objects can appear, can be

temporalized into existents. As awake, my ego can be said to act. With the
 Notes
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temporalization inherent in my acts, I can achieve "my being for myself in temporality."

In other words, intentionality appears in the form of "consciousness of something"; and

this includes my self-objectification -- i.e., my being "something for myself, the human

self which I now am ..." (Ms. A VI 14, p. 7). The same points, but in reverse order, are

made about death. Death is the collapse of the wakefulness just described. In a certain

sense, it is a return to the egological state which existed before birth, i.e., before the

temporalization which gives the ego its life. It is, thus, the "cessation of all conscious life

and, with this, also the cessation of the ego as the identical pole of this life and [the

cessation] of the capacities pertaining to it" (Ms. C 8 I, p. 8, Oct. 1929, italics added).

This is not a collapse into nothingness; it is rather a return to the now which is the

independent origin of this life. What remains is the now which, in temporalizing, first

resulted in the ego's presence as a pole, i.e., a middle point, of its life.

The reason why this collapse is a possibility of "the fact of the I am" is that this

fact is distinct from what it factually constitutes. The fact in question is the fact of my

now; but this now, which is the independent origin of my life, is such by constantly

distinguishing itself from my life in its objective givenness. This givenness includes the

essential structures or rules for ordering experiences which, with a particular sensuous

content, make my life my life. Such structures are part and parcel of my habitualities,

my capabilities as an ego pole. The now actualizes them by making them obtain from

present to present. It does this, however, only through its constant transcendence of the

momentarily present. Husserl, thus, writes, "Present, I exist in continual dying as

something present ..." (Ms. D 14, May 7-9, 1934).17 This dying is a "dying away" into

pastness of the moments which make up my objective life. It is their separation from the

now which is the source of this life. On the one hand, this separation is an absolute

necessity if my life is to be objectively given -- i.e., exist in time. On the other, this same

necessity implies my contingency.

 Notes
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All of the arguments of our last section apply here. My life, as inherently other

than its constitutive origin, has no inherent claim on this origin. It cannot demand that

what is constituted continue to be constituted. Thus, like every other constituted

formation, its necessary otherness from that which actualizes it and maintains it in being

is its contingency. Such otherness is its lack of any inherent necessity to be or to

continue to be. Thus, the essential structures which characterize the necessities of a life

have the possibility of no longer having a field of applicability. If they cease to, then a

regard to the subject is no longer a regard to a full monad, i.e., to a center and a

centering, content laden life. Only the anonymous center remains; and, without its

environing life, it can no longer be regarded as this, my anonymity. It becomes

anonymity stripped of the "this" and the "my." In other words, it becomes the now

which, for Husserl, is before all division into mine and thine. This is the now which

"pre-contains" such divisions simply as part of its "infinitely open possibilities."18

We can conclude this chapter by reducing this argument for our contingency to

its most elementary terms: The now, which is the source of my self-existence, is always

"ahead" of me. Because it is, I cannot seize it so as to fix it as something which I have,

once and for all, grasped or acquired. Thus, I cannot posit my self-existence with the

certainty of a thesis which cannot be overthrown. It must remain a contingent thesis.

Behind this reasoning is the point that, from the perspective of the constituted, the now

appears as ever new, ever lapsing into pastness, constantly transcending itself and, hence

constantly other than itself. As such, the now appears as the pure form of the factual in

its contingency. As we cited Husserl, "facts are contingent." Their very meaning as facts

is that "they could be otherwise". From the perspective of the constituted, the ever new

now is the very possibility of otherness, i.e., of a new stage for settling the world's

accounts. This otherness is a possibility springing from "the fact of the I am" when we

take this fact as including both the original, timeless now and the time it constitutes.
 Notes
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Since the original now can remain now only by transcending its objectification in time, it

can remain now in time only by appearing as the ever new now of successive time.

Taking such newness as facticity, we can say that facticity is the inevitable result of the

appearing of the nunc stans in time. Since the fact of our existence is that of such

appearing, it includes by definition, our contingency.

All of this, of course, is from the perspective of the constituted. Yet, we cannot

avoid the conclusion of our contingency when we shift to the standpoint of the original,

constituting now. From its own perspective, the original now is never other. It remains

continuously now. This nowness, however, is conjoined with anonymity. As such, it

lacks any relation to the constituted and, hence, any basis for our supposing that it must

continue to constitute. We can also say that the sheer uniqueness of its presence is such

that we cannot use it to posit our non-unique, individual existence.

 Notes
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CHAPTER VI
A SECOND SOLUTION TO THE PROBLEM OF INTERSUBJECTIVITY

§1. The Question of the Otherness of the Other

Given Husserl's doctrine of the uniqueness of the now in which egos function, it

is not surprising that the question which initially confronts him is not that of the

compatibility of functioning egos. If that by which they function is one, then such

compatibility may be assumed. The first question is that of the otherness of egos, i.e.,

their distinctness as numerical singulars. This, as Husserl remarks, is the "reverse" of the

usual way of posing the question of intersubjectivity. We do not, as is usual, first assume

a plurality and then pose the question of compatibility. Having performed the reduction

on an individual, we rather ask how the structures we uncover must involve a plurality.

Thus, for Husserl

There is not, first, a plurality of souls and the question: Under what conditions are they
"compatible" with one another in their existence? Rather, the question is: When I am
certain of a soul and when (in self-giving intuition) I steep myself in its proper essence,
how can I gather from this that it is merely "a" soul and can only be as such? How can I
infer that this soul must point to other souls in its very essence, that this soul is, indeed,
an in-and-for-itself, but yet only has sense in a plurality which is grounded in itself and
which must develop from itself (Ms. C 17 I, Sept. 20-22, 1931; HA XV, Kern ed., p.
341).

The problem, here, concerns the "proper essence" of a soul. A regard to it must

show that the soul is only "a" soul -- i.e., one soul among many. The same regard,

however, must also show that this multitiude is grounded in the soul and develops from

it. This essence, then, expresses a duality in the soul's relation to the intersubjective

plurality. On the one hand, it points to an ultimate ground of the intersubjective

 Notes
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plurality; on the other, it points to the soul as a grounded member of such a plurality.

We can also say that since this essence involves both the ground and the grounded, it

points to what is self-grounding. The essence is such that the soul, in grounding a

plurality, includes the ground of its own objectification as a member of this plurality.

When we ask how we can "infer" the above from the "self-giving intuition" of a

soul's essence, we must keep in mind the duality of ground and grounded. For a soul to

ground itself as a member of a plurality, it must, as a ground, contain more than its

objectified expression as "a" soul. The possibilities inherent in it as a ground must, in

other words, surpass the realization provided by its numerically singular, objective being.

If this were not the case, then its objectified expression would be limited to one soul and

not to a plurality (See above, ). Thus, on the level of the ground, what Husserl

requires to establish the otherness of souls is the evidence of the ground's surpassing

quality in relation to its objectified expressions. This evidence can be taken as that of the

contingency of such expressions. As we concluded in our fourth chapter, "... the

acknowledgement of my contingency -- i.e., of my being a 'this' rather than a 'that' --

implies my ground's surpassing quality". As for the evidence for this contingency, this,

according to our last chapter, is provided by the very fact of subjective existence. Since

this is the fact of the appearing of the nunc stans in time, it inherently involves

contingency. Any direct evidence of the ground's surpassing quality must, of course,

involve the reduction. It is the latter which, in exhibiting the ground as the possibility of

all possibilities, displays it as surpassing the possibilities of a finite subject.

What about the level of the grounded -- i.e., that of the individual members of

the intersubjective plurality? Husserl writes in this regard, "Monads in the plural,

coexisting monads as a possibility: inherent in this is that the being of the one leaves

open the possibility of the being of the other" (Ms. C 17 I, HA XV, p. 335). This leaving

open (offen lassen) is, we can say, the objectified expression of the surpassing quality of
 Notes
350

the ground. If the possibilities of the ground surpass any particular objectified

expression, then that expression exhibits this by showing itself as one among many -- i.e.,

as a member of a whole horizon of possible souls. Its status as one expression of a

surpassing ground means that it does not exhaust the possibilities of being "a" soul. Its

being, qua grounded, thus, allows the inference of alternate possibilities understood as

alter egos.

According to the above, the notion of grounding on the original, constitutive

level is matched by the notion of "leaving open" on the level of constituted

objectifications. If the ground must, through its surpassing quality, objectify itself as a

plurality, then each member of this plurality must leave open the possibility of other

members. Here, the otherness of ground and grounded is expressed by the surpassing

nature of the ground; and this is matched, on the objective level, by the otherness implied

in the notion of alternative possibilities.

To add a word of caution, this doctrine must not be taken as signifying that its

propositions could be verified by two separate regards, one to the ground, another to the

grounded. A regard to the ground does not per se reveal its surpassing quality.

Understood as the original present, it represents the "radically pre-egological" level. As

such, the individual soul is not, per se, present within it. Thus, the individual soul, as

that which is surpassed, must be regarded if we are to regard the ground as surpassing.

Similarly, to speak of a soul as implying its alternative egos, we must consider both itself

and its ground. The latter is what situates it in a horizon of alternative possibilities. The

soul implies these, not as an independent "in and for itself", but rather in its dependence

on something greater. With this, we see that it is the full essence of the soul which must

be regarded -- i.e., its essence as containing both ground and grounded. To focus on

either is to involve oneself in a certain misplaced concreteness. It is to ask for an

evidence of otherness which neither aspect of the soul can provide when separately
 Notes
351

regarded.1 With this proviso, let us take as our focus the leaving open which occurs on

the level of the grounded.

§2. Leaving Open and the Nunc Stans

For Husserl, when I speak of my being as a ground of the world, the reference is

to my coincidence with the primal present. The latter forms the non-worldly, anonymous

core of my worldly being. It is what gives me my being as a functioning center of my

world. Regarded in itself, it does not just ground my world. As we quoted Husserl, there

is present "within it ... all time and world in every sense." Thus, to the point that I imply

this present, I imply something more than a private ground. Let us put this in terms of

the notion of leaving open. When Husserl speaks of the being of one monad leaving

open the possibility of the being of another, he adds that "the possibility of my monadic

being is present in my actuality ..." (Ms. C 17 I, HA XV, p. 335). I am actual as a

functioning center by virtue of my being in the primal present. The claim, then, is that

my being in this primal present -- i.e., in nowness per se -- is, on the objective level, my

leaving open the possibility of other individuals in this same nowness.

There are a number of ways in which this claim can be understood. The first

involves an argument which we already mentioned when speaking of a subject's

dependence on the stream of experience which passively constitutes his individual life.

This dependence signifies that egological being is not within the subject's constitutive

powers. He cannot actively constitute either his own or another's life. We can deepen

this argument by saying that nowness per se is now within my constitutive powers. The

primal temporalization of such nowness is at the origin of the passive constitution of my

life. It gives me my being as the center of this life. Yet, as we noted, this nowness is

always "ahead" of me. I cannot objectively grasp it. I cannot posit it as my constituted

product since, as ultimately constituting, it is not itself constituted. Here, a familiar

 Notes
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conclusion arises when we assert that such nowness is my actuality and also claim that

"the possibility of my monadic being is present in my actuality ..." It is that the

possibility of my monad is the possibility of a contingent entity. My actuality is

dependent on a radically pre-egological factor, one which is not a product of my

individual activity. In a certain sense, this actuality is not "mine" at all. Identified with

nowness per se, it is prior to all division between "mine" and "thine." It is only when we

speak of "a" soul that we can speak of a definite possessor. What possesses this nowness

is part of the soul insofar as the soul's essence includes its ground. Yet it is also other

than the soul insofar as it indicates what is prior to its being "a" soul.

Since primal nowness surpasses my constitutive powers as "a" soul, I cannot be

said to constitute Others in the nowness of their being. My being as "a" soul, a being

which is grounded in a surpassing, pre-egological nowness, thus, leaves open the

possibility of other souls who are similarly grounded. This means that each soul must be

considered as other in the sense that no soul can be considered as the product of other,

already individualized souls. The surpassing quality of the ground, thus, expresses itself

in the fact that Others must be regarded as surpassing an individual's constitutive powers.

To put the same point in a slightly different fashion, we can say that when we regard the

soul's full essence, we regard both the primal, constituting nowness and the individual

expression of this which such primal nowness surpasses. In implying more than what the

individual can constitutively accomplish, this nowness implies the possibility of this

"more" in a specific sense. It implies the possibility of more than one individual soul,

more than one specification of primal nowness.

A second way to understand the claim of leaving open is in terms of the notion

of self-identity. One aspect of my self-identity is given through my thematization as a 0

point functioning in time. As we earlier put this, "In all remembrances of my past acts, I

always appear as the here and the now of such acts". In a certain sense, what I confront
 Notes
353

through memory is a plurality of selves. The self's temporalization is its pluralization

insofar as it constantly situates it in a different environment. This environment

individualizes the self; it defines it as a central observer and actor. Thus, a succession of

environments results in a succession of central egos. Through memory, I recall distinct

members of this plurality. In this situation, thematization is a matter of an act of

identification. Apprehending what is the same in all these remembered selves, the act

gives me my sense of always being a center in successively different temporal

environments. I, thus, achieve my sense of self-identity as a center persisting through

time. This identity includes my present being insofar as I also take it as in time, i.e., as a

center defined by a surrounding, content laden time.

A different aspect of self-identity appears when I examine the origin of time.

Here, I focus on my "ego in its most original originality" -- i.e., on it in coincidence with

primal nowness. As we cited Husserl, such an ego is "not in time". This means that "in

its original functioning" -- i.e., its functioning in coincidence with the origin of time --

"the functioning pole is never in the temporal field" (Ms. A V 5, p. 3, June 1933). Such

functioning results in the temporal field and, hence, in the "apartness of time." When,

however, we take it as a feature of the now which is "not a modality of time," we cannot

describe in such terms. In Husserl's words, this now's functioning "is 'continuously'

being as streaming (Strömendsein), but it is not such in an apartness of being" (Ms. C 3 I,

p. 4, 1930). Thus, to affirm the identity of the ego which functions to constitute time, I

must assert "as continuity which is basically different than the external continuity of an

extension" (Ms. C 16 VII, p. 6). An external continuity gives me my self-pluralization,

i.e., my objective self-otherness as a series of past selves. It provides the elements for

my identity as a persisting center. Yet, as Husserl observes: "The constant ego, the

constant source, [is] not identical through an act of identification, but rather is such as a
 Notes
354

primally single being (ureinig Sein) existing in the pre-being (vor-Sein) which is the

most primal ..." (Ms. A V 5, p. 5, Jan. 1933).

What we are confronting are two forms of self-identity: one before time and

another posterior to it. These two forms are, in fact, indicative of the duality of the soul's

essence. Its full essence includes its notion both as ground and grounded. It comprises

its notion as functioning before time to ground "all time and world" and its notion as a

result of such functioning. To grasp its self-identity on the functioning level is to grasp it

in its unique, "primally single being." Thus, insofar as I take myself as a presently

functioning self, my identification with my past functioning selves involves my taking

them, not as past, but as present in the unique nowness of all functioning. Such nowness

is before all placing in time, before all temporal departure into pastness. As such, it does

not, per se, include the pastness of the self. The apprehension of my functioning self-

identity is, therefore, founded on the lack of temporal distance between my past and

present functioning selves. It is the apprehension of such selves "in common," i.e., in the

single now which remains once we bracket temporal distances.

My assertion of my pre-temporal self-identity should not be understood as a

denial of my identity as a synthetically constituted, persisting being. This would only be

the case if, in asserting the former, I denied the reality of the elements -- the past selves --

which constituted the latter. Yet, the past selves do exist. They exist as the results of the

functioning self. Thus, as our last chapter pointed out, the ego is "transcendency in

motion." Its self-temporalization is its passage from uniqueness to individuality -- i.e.,

from one form of self-identity to another. By virtue of the temporalization which creates

its successive environments, it itself undergoes "a kind of temporalization". It is

successively pluralized through its relation to successively different environments. In an

ongoing act of identification, it is continually identified as one and the same. In this

context, temporalization can be seen as a process which mediates between these two
 Notes
355

forms of a soul's self-identity. To reverse this, we can say that, as involving

temporalization, the soul's full essence necessarily involves both forms.

For Husserl, what is indicated by my pre-temporal self-identity is the leaving

open of the nunc stans. If I am in communion with my past selves in the constant now,

then I also have to say that this communion includes my potential Others. To return to a

passage which we cited in part:

There is, indeed, community ... There is community [of self and Others] in the
same way as there is such with regard to my non-temporally extended one and the
same ego which supports the temporality which streams and constitutes.
Community with oneself [i.e., one's past selves] and with Others is concerned
with the union of ego-poles. My ego as an ego which is now and my past ego --
the pole -- have no distance; there is no temporal stretch between them ... The ego
as a pole does not endure. So also my ego and the other ego in the community of
our being with each other do not have any extensive distance [from one
another] ... (Ms. C 16 VII, p. 5, May 1933).

Granting this, I cannot assert my functioning self-identity without appealing to a level

which is non-exclusive. If my persisting self-identity is founding on my functioning self-

identity, then it must leave open the possibility that the same founding includes Others in

their persisting identity. This follows from the duality of my essence. This duality

includes both what is private and what, in its uniqueness, can be common. It includes the

identity of "a" soul and the identity of that which is prior to this. To affirm my self-

identity in terms of this essence, I must, then, accept a level of my being which implies

that there could be Others making the same affirmation. 2

§3. Memory and Empathy

 Notes
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A remarkable conclusion arises when I admit that I and my Others (supposing

they exist) share a common ground for our functioning and, hence, for our being

temporally objective. This implies that, on the level of my coincidence with this ground,

I bare the same relationship to my objectified self as I do to my objectified Others. Let

us put this in terms of memory and empathy. My relation to my objectified self is

through memory. The latter provides the elements for the synthesis of my persisting

unity. My relation to my Others occurs through empathy. "Empathy," here, is not to be

taken as the "primal empathy" discussed in the last chapter. It is rather to be understood

as that which reaches out to my Other in his objective persence. Expressed in these

terms, the conclusion is that memory and empathy delineate the same basic relationship.

They spring from a common root which is the level of my coincidence with my ground,

and they express this ground's common relation to both myself and Others considered as

objective. If we grant this, then memory must leave open the possibility of empathy. I

cannot deny the relation of empathy without also denying that of memory. This follows

since the claim of the above is that I am in contact with my Other in the same basic way

that I am in contact with my past.

Husserl makes this claim again and again in the 1930's. A couple of passages

will suffice to grasp its general tone. He writes:

In empathy -- in originally understanding Others [as other] and possessing them as

persons in the co-present -- I am in contact with them as I am with a thou (Ich mit dem
Du). I am in contact with the other Ego in a way similar to that in which, through the
distance of memory, I am in contact -- am in a community of consciousness -- with my
past I. ... Although the Other is [in a] bodily, worldly [sense] external to me, yet in spite
of this externalizing mode of separation, he is in internal coincidence with me. For even
my "I was" and "I am now" have their externality. I was in Paris, now I am in Freiburg,
etc." (Ms. E III 9, Nov. 20, 1931; HA XV, Kern ed., pp. 416-17).
 Notes
357

Thus, even though space and time separate me from my past existence, through memory

I remain "in contact (in Fühlung)" with this existence. The assertion is that my relation

to the Other is like this. Another manuscript from the same year puts this in terms of the

intentional presence established by synthesis:

I say as well [that the Other is] "outside" of my monad, but this existing outside is itself
included in my monad as an intentional unity which is confirmed through the harmonious
course of re-presentations (Vergegenwärtigungsverlauf). Just as my own past is included
in my present as an intentional unity of my multiple memories, a unity which is
harmonious albeit by correction, and just as my past is not nothing within me (not
nothing within my proper being as a present being) but rather possesses actuality and
constantly maintains this within me as my past, i.e., possesses actuality in the continuing
perceptions which stream from present to present: just so, the Other, the co-present
[person] is not nothing within me, but rather is within me as my Other; and I am who I
am only as bearing in myself this Other and all Others" (Ms. C 17 I, Sept. 1931; HA XV,
Kern ed., p. 336).

The main assertion of this passage is clear. Insofar as they are objectively present, both

self and Others have an intentional presence. Each is an "intentional unity" -- i.e., a one

in many -- which is established through the synthesis involving the "harmonious course"

of my experiences. Husserl's last remark -- that he is who he is only by supporting both

his objectified self and his objectified Others -- returns us to our initial observation. As

functioning, he is who he is in his coincidence with the source of this functioning. The

source, however, bears the same relation to Husserl and his Others. As temporally

objective, they are both the results of the source's functioning and, thus, are equally

supported by the same functioning.

To put this in terms of memory and empathy, let us note with Husserl their

common features. The first is that both lack original presence. For memory, this is
 Notes
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immediately clear. When Husserl remarks, "Isn't perception the unreachable limit of

intuition through memory, he answers by observing that if we crossed this limit, the

remembered would not be remembered, "but would be present." In other words, we

would have eliminated "the pastness of memory." Empathy also has an unreachable

limit. As Husserl draws the analogy, "In the same way, the givenness of the Others's

concrete present in empathy cannot have the full intuitability of a self-perception ...

Empathy can never become perception" (Ms. E III 9, Sept. 1933; HA XV, p. 598). The

reason for this is equally clear. If my perception of the Other reached the point of my

self-perception, i.e., my perception of myself as presently functioning, then the otherness

of the Other would be eliminated. We cannot have both perceptions for "one would

eliminate the other in their coincidence ..." (Ibid.).

This annalogy is tighter than it first seems, for if an original "self-perception" is

the limit of empathy, it is also the limit of self-remembering. This limit can never be

reached, for if I were to achieve "the full intuitability of a self-perception," I would grasp

only the anonymity of the presently functioning self. Here, the realm of the intuition in

which subjects are immediately present to themselves -- i.e., present without any

intervening temporal distances -- is actually a realm which is focused on what is prior to

the self. It directs itself to the level where selves presently function; but this is a level

where they are identified with the original present in its stationary streaming. Thus, as

Husserl here observes: "The structural analysis of the original present (of the stationary,

living streaming) leads us to the structure of the ego and to the lower levels of non-

egological streaming which constantly found this structure ..." It leads, in other words,

"to the radically pre-egological" (Ibid.). Granting this, the full intuitability of self and

Others can only occur by reaching a level where the distinction of self and Others no

longer obtains. This level ties memory and empathy together insofar as it is the limit of

both. It is also their intersection point since to reach it is to eliminate their separate
 Notes
359

objects. To reverse this, we can say that from the perspective of this limit, which is that

of the original present, memory and empathy are not distinct.

With this, we have a second feature which memory and empathy share. They are

both presentative, but neither can directly present its object. Both, then, must be

considered as forms of re-presentation (Vergegenwärtigung). When I remember an

external object, this is immediately clear. Memory re-presents what I originally

perceived. Its non-originality consists in the fact that it cannot directly grasp the

nowness which once animated the contents of a perception. In its grasping the past as

past, this nowness must, in a certain sense, present itself as absent. The same point holds

for self-remembering, though here we must add a qualification. For Husserl, I am

objective to myself "as intentional unity of my multiple memories." This, we must add is

the only way in which I can be objective since a direct grasp of my nowness yields only

the anonymity of my functioning. Turning to empathy, we must with Husserl say:

"Empathy is also re-presentation," and for the very same reason (Ms. B I 22, V, p. 23,

1930's). I have to grasp the Other as a unity of multiple memories. I have to grasp his

nowness as absent, i.e., as at a remove from the nowness of functioning. A direct

presentation would simply identify him with my functioning.

We have just contrasted self-remembering with the memory directed to an

external object. The re-presentational quality of the latter can, we implied, be matched to

what was once a direct presentation. In this, it is distinguished from self-remembering

and empathy. Here, re-presentation must count as an original mode of apprehension

since I cannot directly grasp a self. On closer inspection, this contrast is deceptive.

Strictly speaking, there is no direct presentation of an object as an object. All objective

unities require what Husserl calls "the harmonious course of re-presentations." In other

words, taking re-presentation in its general sense as a presenting again of what was once

originally present, it is a feature of all objective constitution. This is immediately evident

 Notes
360

when we note that in constituting an object, the contents I directly apprehend constantly

give way to others. They are continuously departing into pastness as the object

temporally unfolds its contents to me. Now, if these contents are not to vanish the

moment I apprehend them, they must be made present again. Only as co-present with

my ongoing act can they be synthesized into a persisting unity of sense. Thus, a "direct"

perception of an object requires temporalization and the opening up of temporal

distances. It also requires the overcoming of these distances through re-presentation. If

an object cannot be constituted except through the re-presentation of its constitutive

elements, then it is in the same position of the intentional unities of self and Other. Re-

presentation must count as its original mode of presence. It cannot be apprehended

without re-presentation since prior to this, I am limited to the immediate content of

nowness, a content which, objectively speaking, is anonymous.

The above does not mean that there is no distinction between memory and

straight-forward perception. As we shall see, we can distinguish between levels of re-

presentation. In "long term" memory, I re-present to myself the results of an earlier

perceptual synthesis involving re-presentation. The original re-presentation occurring in

straight-forward perception may be distinguished from that of memory by calling it

"retention" or "short term" memory.

This distinction does not obviate a point which Husserl is attempting to make in

speaking of perception, memory and empathy as forms of re-presentation. As an

essential element in all synthesis (all graasp of unity in multiplicity), re-presentation

gives us a temporal distinction between the constituting ego and the unities it constitutes.

It results in the contrast between the original nowness of constitution and the nowness

pertaining to distinct co-existing or co-present objects. Limiting ourselves to what is

immediately present, i.e., to nowness stripped of all re-presentation -- self, Others and,

indeed, the objects of external perception are indistinguishable. Yet out of this nowness
 Notes
361

a difference is constituted, a difference whereby I can say, "The Other exists for me as a

co-present ego ... I possess his present as a co-present ..." (Ms. C 3 III, p. 33, March

1931). Husserl puts this in terms of the "absolute ego" and the "new synthesis" which is

required to make this assertion. He writes:

The absolute ego is the ego which in streaming constancy constitutes and has constituted
the world. Within it, as the basis of this universal constitutive performance, there is
present the self-alienation (selbst-entfremdung) of monadization and, hence, the
constitution of a monadic universe of mutually equivalent and essentially similar
monads. The latter display themselves in the absolute ego as a distinct temporal sphere
which can be differentiated or [what is the same, they display themselves] as a universal
co-existence ... In establishing a community of monads as a monadic universe within
monadic time, we have a new synthesis, one which, in temporalizing, produces a unity
withhin multiplicity, a unity of co-existence, that of a single time to which immanent
times or immanent unities -- the streams of experience and their centering ego poles -- all
being (Ms. E II 1, Jan. 15, 1934, HA XV, Kern ed., p. 636).

This "new synthesis" moves us beyond primal empathy. In the latter, when I regard the

Other in terms of immediate (non-synthesized) nowness, I assert: "I discover my now

and his now as existing in one ..." (Ms. C 17 I; HA XV, p. 332). Here, however,

nowness is presented as absent, i.e., at a remove which allows it to be "a distinct temporal

sphere which can be differentiated."

This result is the work of re-presentation as it functions in every temporal

synthesis. The now in its absence is the now that has departed into pastness. My re-

presenting it is a returning it to presence. As such, it is a presentation of what has

departed from presence. The recalled now, insofar as it implies this departure, is not the

same as the original now which served as its point of departure. Hence, its return to

presence makes it co-present rather than coincident with the latter. The same point can
 Notes
362

be made in terms of Husserl's assertion that self and Others are objectively present as

constituted, intentional unities. Such unities presuppose the fact of temporalization.

Thus, when I assert that I am "in contact" with my past self through re-presentation, I am

presupposing the temporalization which first made this self depart into pastness. The

case is no different for my objectified Other or, indeed, for the inanimate objects which I

synthesize along with my objective self. The otherness impicit in their temporal co-

existence is an otherness which the departure, the flowing into pastness, of already

constituted time imposes between the originally present and the re-presented. Thus, as

presupposing temporalization, re-presentation does not directly present the original

present. It can only re-present it in terms of what has departed from it. Because of this,

its result is never the sheer coincidence which characterizes the point from which this

departure occurs -- i.e., the original present of the "absolute ego." Quite the contrary,

objects whose temporal syntheses involve an equal remove from this present -- i.e., a

flowing off of contents into equal degrees of pastness -- can be apprehended as co-

existent and, hence, as simultaneous with each other.

Another section will be required to complete Husserl's parallel between memory

and empathy. Let us conclude by expressing this section's result in terms of leaving

open. Our initial claim was that we cannot deny the relation of memory without also

denying empathy. We can now say that memory must be such that it leaves open the

possibility of empathy since what makes it possible -- which is the action of re-

presentation -- is also what makes empathy possible. Both depend on our grasp of

nowness as absent. Both require its re-presentation as the nowness which stands over

against the original present of functioning. Let us put this in terms of simultaneity.

Simultaneity is the existence of non-exclusive presents. Each such present permits the

possibility of other, simultaneous presents existing "outside" of itself. Simultaneous

presents are, thus, distinguished from the uniquely singular, exclusive present of the pre-
 Notes
363

temporal now. If the latter is thought of as their ground -- i.e., that which bears them as

its temporal exhibitions -- then the otherness of ground and grounded is a condition for

the leaving open -- i.e., the non-exclusivity -- of simultaneity. Concretely speaking, this

otherness is accomplished by temporal departure. Such departure, as overcome but not

annihilated by re-presentation, is what gives us the temporal condition for simultaneity. 3

This condition, we should note, is inherent in the full essence of the soul. As involving

temporalization, this essence is expressive of the otherness of ground and grounded. It

includes both primal nowness and the re-presented nowness which has the possibility of

co-presence. As including in its notion the continuous transition from one to the other,

this essence inherently leaves open the possibility of other, co-present souls or "monads"

on the objective level.

§4. Representation and the Presentation of the Absolute

When we consider simultaneity to be a result of re-presentation, we are making

an implicit assumption. We can draw it out by observing its limitation. Re-presentation

distinguishes between the original and the re-presented present. It is also capable of

distinguishing between the co-presence of different types of pastness. Confronted with

the same degree of pastness, however, its powers of differentiation fail. Confining

ourselves to the "pure" temporal process, the re-presentation of that which involves the

same degree of departure is, in fact, the same. It leaves open the possibility of

simultaneity -- i.e., of non-exclusive presents; but it does not contain the conditions

which are sufficient to distinguish these presents into a plurality.

Let us put this in terms of the analogous case of considering extension by itself.

A pure concept of extension will allow us to distinguish between different spatial

positions. It cannot distinguish between one and the same position. For this, we require

time. We must make the distinction: "here at times x, y, or z." To reverse this, in
 Notes
364

distinguishing the same time, we must be able to say: "now at positions x, y, or z."

Phenomenologically speaking, this distinction between positions is provided by sensuous

content. The temporal stream must be content laden. Its contents must succeed each

other in an order which yields the perspectival appearing of a visual field if we are to

have the possibility of re-presenting different yet simultaneous locations in a three

dimensional world.

Granting this, we cannot speak of self and Others as co-present without assuming

content. Indeed, without this assumption, we cannot differentiate ego from ego.

Considered as a temporal center, the ego is only an "empty form". It is something which

is individualized or made "concrete" by the content of its stream. In Husserl's words,

"My original temporal being, my being as a temporalizing-temporalized stream of life

(and within this, the ego as a center, as the ego of this stream) is concrete as an immanent

temporal form which is continuously filled." What fills it is "the content which

composes the perception of the world" (Ms. C 7 II, p. 16, ca. June 15, 1934). This

position is repeated again and again with minor variations. Content is said to be what

distinguishes my world as my own. It is what underlies the relativity of the world -- i.e.,

the world as it appears to me as opposed to my Other. As such, it distinguishes us as

centers viewing the world in its different aspects. Husserl, for example, asks: "Can the

other ego, the other concrete streaming present be the same as my ego and present? But,

each, as apperceiving the same world, must necessarily have different aspects, etc. (and

only so, can he be an Other). Accordingly, he cannot have the same fields of sensation

with the same data of sensation, etc." (Ms. E III 9, Sept. 1933; HA XV, Kern ed., p.

598).

Behind this necessity for different sensuous contents is the fact that, regarded as

"the identical persisting pole in the changes of immanent temporal events," the ego is not

yet individualized. "I have always said," Husserl writes, "that the pure ego is abstract; it
 Notes
365

is concrete only through the content of the streaming present" (Ms. C III 3, p. 28, March

1931). It is through such changing content, as opposed to its invariant temporal form,

that the ego achieves its uniqueness, its distinction from its Others. Thus, for Husserl,

"The absolute uniqueness [of the ego] lies in the content of the ego itself, [this]

notwithstanding the universal form, the universal essence through which the ego is an

ego" (Ms. C 8 I, p. 23, June-July, 1932). The latter is the universal form of temporal

centering. It results in the "streaming center 'now,' the streaming just past and what is to

come ..." -- i.e., the advancing future. With content, we have "the center of the 'absolute

here' which corresponds to the now and pertains to it" (Ms. B III 1, p. 85, end of Oct.-

Nov. 4, 1929). For this here and now to be unique -- i.e., be distinguished from those of

co-present Others -- differing contents must enter in.

We stress this point because of what it indicates about the basis of re-

presentation. When Husserl writes that along with memory, "empathy is also re-

presentation," he adds a third feature which they share in common. An original presence

is at the basis of what they re-present. Presupposing temporalization, they both

presuppose an original making present. As Husserl describes this:

Every re-presentation has the constantly streaming making present (Gegenwärtigung) as

its "foundation." In this making present, I am the ego in its primal mode, the non-
numerically singular ego, the functioning subject of the life which makes present, the
subject in which the present is apprehended in its primal mode (Ms. B I 22, V, p. 23,
1930's).

This making present, which is the foundation of re-presentation, is a function of the

original present. It is what is uniquely singular. I can be called the "non-numerically

singular ego" because my functioning is identified with its functioning -- i.e., its making

present. Thus, I apprehend this present in its "primal mode" when I apprehend it as the
 Notes
366

uniquely singular core of my functioning. In this context, to call memory and empathy

forms of re-presentation implies the following claims: Both must be considered as

grounded by the original making present. Both must synthesize their objects by re-

presenting what is contained in the uniquely singular present. Since this present is

unique, the original (non-represented) presence of self and Others must be the same.

Yet, through re-presentation, both must be distinct. With this, we set the character of the

basis for their re-presentation. If we are to have distinct heres corresponding to the now,

content must enter into this basis. Thus, this original present must contain content, a

content appropriate to its "non-numerically singular" status. In other words, its presence

must be that of the absolute whose underlying character is exhibited by the aspects of

both time and content.

Let us take a moment to clarify this last assertion. We earlier remarked that time

and content are part of the absolute insofar as they are features of its being the ground of

all possible syntheses. We now assert that this ground is present in the anonymous core

of subjective functioning. Here, we have a dual claim. Insofar as time is an aspect of the

absolute, we are asserting that, pre-objectively, the whole of the time required for every

possible synthesis is present in the pre-temporal now of this core. Considering the

absolute as an alphabet of contents, we are asserting that the alphabet, itself, is present in

this now. In other words, in the nowness of our functioning, we do not just have the

contents of the impressional moment -- i.e., the sensuous contents of our immediately

present visual field. Our claim is that this nowness contains the totality of the content

required for every possible synthesis.

To show that the whole of time is present in the core, we must return to the

arguments dealing with our functioning self-identity. As we cited Husserl, this identity is

that of "a primally single being existing in the pre-being which is the most primal" (Ms.

A V 5, p. 5, 1933). The pre-being is the pre-temporal now which must, as we said, be

 Notes
367

considered as a uniquely singular presence. Thus, it includes, pre-objectively, the whole

of time since it does not have a beyond. Insofar as it is prior to extended time, it cannot

be thought of one among many nows, each being considered "external" to the others.

Pre-objectively, there is no such thing as a temporal distance, which means that the

original now is simply the presence which comes to be successively exhibited by

extended time. In other words, what we confront here is not a one-among-many

phenomenon, but rather that which manifests the character of one in many (See above,

). The pre-temporal now is the presence manifesting itself in each successive moment.

As present, none of them are outside it -- this, even though, objectively speaking, they

can be said to depart from it, i.e., become past.

The above can also be put in terms of our earlier remark that the now in time is

the objective exhibition of the pre-temporal now. Granting this, we can say with Husserl,

"When the ego is exhibiting its past, when it is actually remembering and finding itself in

successive being, it is, in fact, exhibiting its full present, exhibiting what it is now, what

[pre-objectively] lies within it as an ego" (Ms. A V 5, p. 10, Jan. 1933). The basis of this

statement is Husserl's assertion that "the ego is continually a pole; it has no breadth, no

[temporal] extension; it has nothing of the character of apartness ..." (Ibid.). This

signifies that, in functioning to constitute time, "the present ego is self-shaping (sich

selbst gestaltend) and bears within itself its past self-shapings" (Ibid.). The ego "bears"

(trägt) its past self-shapings through its acts of re-presentation of what it originally

presents or exhibits. It shapes itself through the "streaming making present" of its life.

In this way, its exhibition or "explication (Auslegung) leads necessarily to the time of

consciousness and to its self-temporalization as a quasi-extension of the ego over time ..."

(Ibid.). The key point, here, is that re-presentation depends upon presentation; but the

latter is a temporal exhibition of what is pre-temporally present in the ego's core. This

implies that the ego becomes in time what, in a certain sense, it already is before time.
 Notes
368

Per se, its "'living present' is not the stream of consciousness" -- i.e., the stream of

impressional moments (Ms. C 2 I, p. 22, Aug. 1931). Thus, the temporal exhibition of

what is in this present is not an exhibition of something which, per se, is already

temporal (See Ibid.). When the ego is exhibiting "what it is now," it is engaged in a

temporal self-making or self-shaping. It is involved in a motion from what, pre-

objectively, contains "all time and world" to what, objectively speaking, is only a

particular exhibition of this. With this, Husserl's position may be stated as follows: In

the original present, with its lack of temporal distances, we cannot distinguish self and

Others or the objects of our surrounding world. In this present's "all at once," the past,

the momentary present and the advancing future are "now" but are not yet distinguished.

It is through presencing and re-presentation that we have these distinctions and, hence,

self and Others can become particularized into subjects, each with his distinct here and

now.

Since such particularization involves content, let us turn to our second claim:

namely that the alphabet of contents is present in the anonymous core of the functioning

subject. As we recall, such an alphabet is an aspect of the absolute insofar as it is an

alphabet, i.e., insofar as it is independent of any particular ordering. As such, the

contents forming it have the possibility of being arranged in every possible temporal

ordering and, thus, help to ground every possible synthesis. To speak of contents in this

way is to make them anonymous in an objective sense. Prior to their arrangement in a

definite ordering, they are prior to all objectively nameable unities of sense. They are

simply the elements of such unities, elements which are abstracted from all temporal

orderings. Their "place," then, is in that which has "no breadth, no [temporal]

extension." They are not in time, but rather in the pre-temporal now which is at the core

of subjective functioning. "Exhibiting what it is now," this core produces the present

impressional moment with its limited content. It does this repeatedly. This "spelling
 Notes
369

out," so to speak, of what it contains produces the definite temporal order of contents

which results in objectification. Pre-temporally, however, this core is what it will be in

time. That is to say, it must be regarded as already containing all the contents which

impressional moments successively exhibit.4

With this, we have the context for Husserl's position that, on the level of the

original making present, memory and empathy have a common root. Their source is

within me insofar as it forms my functioning core. Yet it results in more than what I can,

through memory, apprehend as myself. Including content, it results in what I can

subsequently re-present as my co-present Other. Husserl writes in this regard:

Don't we finally arrive at the fact that even what is hidden (das Verborgene) in
sedimentation and [its] activization still plays its role in the living present as the present
of a concrete subjectivity; [don't we arrive at the fact] that streaming being (constituting
qua streaming each and every entity for me) contains in a concentrated fashion [every]
entity in itself and temporality in itself. It is what it is (in its manner of being) precisely
as the living present, as the living constituting present; and, hence, as pertaining to this, it
is what it is as the potentiality for such [world] constitution ... There [in the living
present], every Other, every other ego, every other transcendental being-present is also
constituted in me, constituted precisely as a streaming co-present subjectivity which is,
itself, concrete in its streaming living present. This, just as there is streamingly
constituted in me my own temporality of being as a past being, as a concrete streaming
present and this [as a present] for every past" (Ms. C III 3, p. 32, March 1931).

The point of the first part of this passage is that the constitutive potentiality of the living

present extends beyond what the passage of time has laid down (or sedimented) as a

subjective possession. Reactivated, this acquisition can play its role in constitution. Yet

constitution employs even what is "hidden" in such activization (Weckung). It has at its

disposal the content of the living present -- i.e., the present which "is what it is" precisely

as the potential for an all-embracing world constitution. The passage's closing remarks
 Notes
370

focus on the fact that the constitution of myself as a "concrete streaming present" requires

the constitution of my past. This past makes the present "concrete" by making it appear

as the leading edge of an extended life, i.e., as a present "for" a definitely given past life.

Here, Husserl's claim is that the very temporalization which gives me a past and, hence,

gives me the data which I can synthetically re-present as my persisting self performs the

same service for my Other. The claim, then, is that the original making present which

results in subjective concreteness is ultimately "the origin of Others and of myself as one

among many within the objective world ..." (Ms. K III 4, p. 77, Jan. 20, 1936). What is

being asserted is, in fact, our co-constitution. Because of this, Husserl can say: "I exist

as a streaming present; but my [objective] being for myself is itself constituted in this

streaming present ... The Other exists for me in the same way ..." (Ms. C III 3, p. 33).

This notion of existence "for me" should not be taken in a solipsistic sense. It is

not as a solis ipse that I can assert that "every Other ... is also constituted in me." In fact,

my relation to my re-presented Other is a convertible one. Thus, Husserl, switching to

the term appresentation, writes of the Other: "He is appresented in me and I am

appresented in him ... I am a subject for everything that exists and a subject for all those

who, themselves, are subjects for everything that exists including myself. The absolute

subject bears Others in himself as self-appresentations ..." (Ms. C III 3, p. 33). His point

is that this absolute subject is not my objective subjectivity. It is rather the constituting,

originally presenting core of my subjectivity. Because of the uniquely singular, pre-

egological character of this core's temporalization, Husserl can speak of "the 'primordial'

and the re-presented Other in the streaming now." He can assert that "the stream does

not just have a self-implication but also the implication of other streams -- the

constitution of unities within the stream ... I and Others as [constituted] unities in the

stream" (Ms. D 14, p. 8, March 1931). The "primordial" Other is, in fact, the same as my

primordial self. Both are indistinguishable in the stationary streaming now. From the
 Notes
371

point of view of this now, both self and Others are represented or constituted unities.

Thus, each subject, in taking up the standpoint of his ground can be said to bear both his

objective Others and himself as self-appresentations. They are re-presentations of what

the self's core originally presents.5

Let us put this in terms of memory and empathy. If from the standpoint of my

ground, the Other can be considered as my self-appresentation, then from this standpoint

memory and empathy are not distinct. They become distinct after individualization, i.e.,

after the specification of anonymity through a surrounding, content-laden environment.

It is only at this point that I can speak of memory as recalling what is distinctly my own.

Empathy also appears in its proper character. It becomes a function of self-transcending

intentions. These are the intentions which reach out from my living present to that of the

Other, both being understood as presents which are individuated by differing

environments.

Now, the fact that the full essence of my soul includes both levels -- that of my

ground and that of this ground's objectification into what is proper to me -- allows me to

make opposing assertions. I can assert that memory and empathy are not distinct. I can

also claim the opposite. Husserl, focusing on the full essence of the soul, attempts to

combine the perspectives of both assertions by writing: "... in the originality of empathy,

i.e., of a co-remembering instead of an [ordinary] remembering (einer Miterrinerung statt

einer Widererrinerung), the being co-present of Others is a self-remembering of Others

(ein Selbterinneren der Anderen) in the course of which the being co-present of Others is

understood as that of another living present which related to my living present. The co-

being of Others is inseparable from me in my living making-present of myself ..." (Ms. C

III 3, p. 34). The co-remembering of Others, which is directed to their co-presence,

depends upon the individualization of self and Others into distinct unities. As such, it is

a function of the grounded (objectified) level of the soul. This co-remembering,

 Notes
372

however, is a self-remembering of Others on the grounding (pre-objective) level of the

soul. From the perspective of the latter, the relation of living presents, concretely taken

as co-present centers, results from their being simultaneous objectifications of an original

pre-temporal present. They are both self-appresentations -- i.e., self-rememberings -- of

this present since the originally present "self," which is here thought of as remembered, is

not yet considered as the self of an individual which stands over against his Others. If

this is the case, then we have a reciprocity which allows a second interpretation of "the

self-remembering of Others." We can say that my co-remembering of the Other is his

self-remembering since the object of what counts for me as empathy has the same origin

as the object of the Other's self-remembering. 6

The same points hold with regard to Husserl's assertion, "The co-being of Others

is inseparable from me in my living making-present of myself (meinem lebendigen

Sichselbst-Gegenwärtigen) ..." Once again we have a duality of reference. It is in

coincidence with my ground that I make myself present. It is as something made present

(as an objectified presence), that I exist with "the co-being of Others." Since the full

essence of my soul includes both references, this co-being is inseparably tried to my

making present.

There are two ways to understand this last assertion. We can say that the co-

being of Others is dependent on my making present. Here, we focus on the basic notion

that re-presentation rests on presentation. We assert that everything present in a non-

original way must be grounded on the originally present. A second understanding goes

further than this. It claims that I cannot make myself present without also appresenting

the co-being of Others. In other words, such co-being does not just imply my making

present, but also the reverse. This last, of course, is Husserl's position. As we cited him,

the "soul must point to other souls in its very essence ..." Accordingly, it "only has sense
 Notes
373

in a plurality which is grounded in itself and must develop from itself" (Ms. C 17 I, Sept.

20-22, 1931; HA XV, p. 341).

To move from the first to the second understanding, we must draw out what is

implied in "my living making-present of myself." Insofar as this involves what is

originally present, its basis is the anonymous core of my functioning. On the one hand,

this core is that by virtue of which I am a self -- i.e., a functioning center. It is, on the

other hand, the absolute in both of its aspects. This means that in the non-extended unity

of my core, I possess the totality of time and content required for every possible

synthesis. As we earlier put this, the core by which I function contains the possibility of

all synthetic possibilities. Now, this core is the original presence which re-presentation

presents. It thus follows that my self re-presentation must include its presence. My

"living making-present of myself" must, in other words, involve the re-presentation of

that present by virtue of which I am a self. Since the latter contains more than the

possibilities which I can objectively manifest, its re-presentation must involve my re-

presentation in a context which includes other possibilities. As a consequence, I can only

make myself present as one among many subjective possibilities of being and behaving.

This can be put in terms of the assertion that the soul "only has sense in a

plurality which is grounded in itself." For Husserl, this means that the soul (qua re-

presented) has a sense only as a member of a plurality grounded in itself (qua originally

present). Thus, as a constituted unity, it has its sense only in terms of the open ended

plurality of constitutive possibilities which are grounded in its original present. Such a

plurality is grounded in itself insofar as it constitutively functions in coincidence with

what surpasses its objective presence. Yet, if we grant this, it is senseless to conceive of

a solipsistic soul. To be a soul, it must be a self. This means that its essence must

include its status as re-presented and as originally present. As originally present, it has

an anonymous core of its functioning. Yet, the re-presentation of this core, which yields
 Notes
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the objective presence of a soul, always surpasses it and, hence, makes us understand it as

"a" soul -- i.e., as one among many possible manifestations of subjective existence. Qua

re-presented (or what is the same), qua constituted, it must, then, always leave open the

possibilities of its Others.

§5. Contingency and Re-presentation

Our last section concluded that I cannot re-present myself without re-presenting

other possibilities of being and behaving. This should not be taken as indicating that all

such re-presentations are on the same level. Thus, it does not mean that the Other is

present to me in the same way that I am present to myself. My self-presence depends

upon the presencing of my core. The latter results in the stream of impressional

moments which I take as my stream of consciousness. The synthesis of its contents gives

me my world with my Others. Admitting this, I cannot say that my self re-presentation

involves my viewing the world from multiple perspectives. Only one perspective is

actual for me. Our conclusion accepts this, but asserts that this perspective is re-

presented in terms of a horizon of possible alternatives. Each is an alternative which

could be actualized by a different presencing -- i.e., a different series of impressional

moments.

Let us put this in terms of the double perspective which our last section

attempted to maintain. From the perspective of the absolute -- considered as the non-

extended unity of my core -- my objective presence is the same as the presence of the

Other. As we earlier put this, the absolute, in its own nature, cannot be limited to one

objectification. Thus, if it does objectify itself, its objectification cannot occur alone.

For Husserl, this means that "a possible ego immediately implies a universe, a totality of

egos co-existing with it" (Ms. E III 9, HA XV, p. 383). In other words, the possibility of

the presencing, which gives me my impressional stream of consciousness and, hence, my

 Notes
375

world, immediately implies the possibility of other presencings -- other streams. Since

no objectification of the absolute can occur alone, we may, of course, extend this. We

can assert that the actuality of my stream implies the actuality of Other streams. Now,

from the absolute's perspective, all streams are self-explications. All temporally exhibit

its non-extended content. Here, the absolute subject bears all subjects as self-

appresentations -- i.e., as re-presentations of what is contained in its original presence.

This perspective both is and is not my own view of the matter. It is insofar as I

limit myself to the sheer anonymity of my core -- i.e., regard this core through a

reduction which brackets everything which has temporally departed from it. It is not my

perspective insofar as I regard my anonymity as specified by what my core presents --

i.e., regard it as "this," "my" anonymity. In the second case, I take up an individual as

opposed to an absolute perspective. With this, the Other appears as another specification

of anonymity. Thus, I distinguish the presencing which results in my being present as a

center of my world and the presencing which results in the Other. One presencing -- one

resulting stream of impressional moments -- is said to pertain to me; and its alternative is

taken as pertaining to the Other. The second takes its place in the horizon of possibilities

surrounding the specification of my core. It becomes one of its alternate possibilities: a

presencing which could have but did not specify it. Here, the Other's presence to me

becomes a matter of leaving open. I re-present myself such that I leave open the

possibility of the presencing which results in him. This leaving open, taken as a regard

to alternative possibilities, becomes empathy insofar as such possibilities become objects

of my self-transcending intentions. Out of the alternatives to myself, I form intentions

that reach beyond the specification of my anonymity to other specifications.

When we combine both perspectives, we assert that the Other re-presents myself

as more than myself. This means that the self-transcending intentions of empathy exhibit

possibilities which are inherent in my ground and also that such possibilities surpass what
 Notes
376

I exhibit in my objective presence. These intentions, then, are not fulfilled by me. They

are filled by the presence of those Others whose ways of being and behaving objectively

appear to correspond to them. The Other's behavior is seen in terms of an alternative

presencing, one which I still recognize as related to mine insofar as my own presencing

implies its alternatives.

The question we face in regarding this doctrine is how can it be delineated in

terms of re-presentation. How does re-presentation actually result in the intention to the

Other? Our difficulty stems from the fact that re-presentation depends upon making

present. The making present which I directly experience results in my stream of

impressional moments. Its re-presentation gives me myself. If I vary this making

present, then I have an alternate presencing, one whose re-presentation results in an

alternative self. Yet, how do I perform this second re-presentation? How can I speak of

a re-presentation which depends on a presencing (and on a consequent stream of

impressional moments) which I do not directly experience?

To answer this question, we must return to the notion of contingency. This

notion plays a crucial role in the doctrine that the absolute cannot be limited to one

objectification, i.e., to one making present which results in the presence of a solitary

subject. If it were so limited, then this objectification would have to be considered as its

necessary result. The subject, in its objective presence, would not be considered

contingent. When we reverse this implication by assuming that the subject is contingent,

we deny its premise. We assert that the absolute cannot be limited to exhibiting itself in

just one subject -- i.e., in the single presencing which underlies this subject (See above,

).

As is obvious, the lynch pin of this argument is the assertion that the objectively

present subject is contingent. Given that re-presentation is the original mode of objective

presence, this can be considered as included in the assertion that all re-presentations have
 Notes
377

an inherently contingent status. To establish this, we must recall that re-presentation

presupposes temporal departure. In grasping an objective presence, I must re-present

what has departed from the original present. This present, in its constant making present,

is the very "to be" of the objects which I grasp. Yet, as we noted, it is not inherent in

their own objective presence. Qua re-presented, objects are at a temporal remove from

their "to be"; they are present by virtue of their not being now in an original sense. We

can, thus, say that all re-presented objects are inherently contingent since that by virtue of

which they continue to be -- the presencing or giving of the original present -- is not

directly grasped in their presence. As we earlier put this, they continue to be given

insofar as their givenness is added to. They depend on a giving -- an original

temporalization -- which is a temporal remove from their presence. If we turn to regard

this giving, the contingency of what we re-present is not dispensed with. We rather lose

objective givenness, since we reach the anonymity which is prior to all re-presentation.

This is why re-presentation is the original mode by which we grasp objective presence.

This mode, however, must grasp a contingent presence.

Contingency, of course, does not just pertain to the fact of an object's existence.

It also affects the temporal ordering of contents which gives us the object's what -- i.e.,

its essence. There is no inherent necessity in this "what" since contents, per se, do not

have any necessary link to particular temporal positions. We can also say that as part of

the given, an object's essential structure lacks any existential necessity -- i.e., any

necessity which would demand that they continue to be given as the structure of an

objective world. This means that such essential structures are variable. They do not

determine what must be -- and, hence, what must continue to be. They only express

possibilities; they are the structures of what is contingently given -- i.e., what could have

been given with different structures. Here, of course, the contingent is thought of as an

alternative, a "this" rather than a "that." As we cited Husserl, "contingency inherently

 Notes
378

includes a horizon of possibilities in which the contingent itself signifies one of these

possibilities, precisely the one which actually occurred" (Ms. C I, Sept. 21-22, 1934; HA

XV, Kern ed., p. 669).

At the basis of such contingency is the original present. Its making present, i.e.,

its temporalization of what it pre-temporally contains -- results in the stream of

impressional moments. As such, it makes the essence actual as an order which obtains

for successively given contents. To this, however, we must add a consideration springing

from the independence of time and content. The fact that temporal positions are not tied

to particular contents signifies that the primal present, in its primal temporalization, is

independent of what it makes present. Such independence implies 1) its capacity for

actualizing different essential structures, 2) the lack of any necessity for a particular

structure to obtain, and 3) the placing of a given structure in a horizon of alternatives

which could just as well be actualized. This directly applies to the re-presented unity of

my life with its sedimented "essential" structures which I call my habitualities and

capabilities. The contingency of this unity is the possibility of varying these structures.

It is the possibility of alternative lives with alternative habitualities and capabilities.

A double conclusion follows from the above. First of all, in establishing the

contingency of the re-presented subject, we have secured its non-solipsistic nature. From

the absolute's perspective, all subjects are its re-presentations. All have departed from its

original presence and, hence, all must be regarded as contingent. Given that the absolute

cannot objectify itself in a single, contingent re-presentation, our conclusion follows.

This re-presentation cannot occur alone.

Turning to the individual's perspective, we have a similar result. The

individual's objective presentations are considered as contingent insofar as they do not

directly manifest the presencing -- the original temporalization -- which makes them

present. The latter appears only as a re-presented presencing. It is re-presented as the

 Notes
379

continuance or persistence of the presented object. Furthermore, when the individual

turns to regard the immediate content of his presencing he finds that the stream of

impressional moments doesn't directly manifest, but only re-presents the non-extended

content of the original present. This present is independent of what it presents; its

original, if anonymous presence is the origin of all making present. As the original

presence underlying all re-presentation, it must be what is ultimately re-presented. Yet

such re-presentation to be faithful must manifest the origin's independence. Granting

this, we can say that to re-present the origin in terms of what it presents is to apprehend

the latter as contingent. The origin presents itself as the present impressional moment.

Re-presented in terms of the latter, the origin appears as the moment whose content could

have been otherwise. The same point holds when I synthesize my representations of

successive impressional moments. This synthesis gives me my objective presence in my

world. To re-present the origin in terms of myself and my world is to see them as having

an origin which is independent of their presence. In other words, the independence of the

origin is re-presented in the contingency of what results from it. It is re-presented as

inclusion of the result in a horizon of alternatives, alternatives which could have been

actualized by other streams of impressional moments.

From this, it is clear what is wrong with the objection which we raised. We do

not go far enough when we say that re-presentation depends upon a presencing which

results in my impressional stream (my stream of consciousness). To see how the

intention to the Other can be grounded in this presencing, we must add that this

presencing is, itself, the result of a re-presentation. Thus, as we earlier noted, the

moment of time is the appearance, the objective expression of the original, anonymous

present (See above, ). It is not the same as the original; it is its temporal re-

presentation. As such, it re-presents what is prior to my temporal, individual existence in

terms of what establishes this existence. It re-presents the pre-temporal now as a member
 Notes
380

of the stream of momentary content-laden nows. The independence of the former is re-

presented as the contingency of the latter. Thus, inherent in the givenness of my making

present -- i.e., in the temporalization which is the heart of my functioning life -- is a

could have been otherwise. This points beyond my functioning to another life. It forms,

when I become fully concrete, an intention to another, equally concrete subject.

When we combine the perspectives of the absolute and individual subjects, a

further point can be made. The absolute cannot be re-presented as a single, contingent

subject. From its perspective, I cannot occur alone. Thus, my becoming concrete is not

just the sign that I intend Others who are equally concrete. It also signifies that the

absolute has objectified itself in more than myself. Here, the absolute is viewed as

grounding both my self-transcending intentions and the Others who, if I encounter them,

would act so as to fulfill what I intend. Their behavior, in other words, would be the

manifestation of an alternate presencing.

Let us attempt to deepen these reflections. According to the above, there is a

common root to my self-presence and my self-transcending intentions. My contingency

and my empathy are also seen as co-grounded. The givenness of what I re-present as

myself is, by virtue of its contingency, matched by an intention to its could have been

otherwise. To see more clearly the tie between the two, we can turn to a passage which

we have already cited in part. Husserl writes:

Every re-presentation has the constantly streaming making present as its foundation. In
this making present, I am the ego in its primal mode ... My functioning life, however, is
not just [this] making present. It is a re-presenting which constantly modifies the making
present, the present [which has been presented] and the ego of making present. ... The
function which re-presents does not change the stream which makes present. In its own
continuity during its own streaming, the re-presenting functioning has the presenting
stream as its constant lower stratum (Untergrund) ... Re-presentation, then, is an
"intentional modification" of making present, one on the basis of the making present
 Notes
381
which is presently functioning; but the latter is not modified through re-presentation.
The living making present is not [itself changed into] the re-presented. All re-
presentation is making present "as if" (Ms. B I 22, V, pp. 23-24).

The distinction which Husserl is attempting to make is one between a modification which

actually transforms what it modifies and one which leaves it untouched. Thus, the re-

presentative function does not interfere with what is presented in the stream of

impressional moments. Similarly, it does not affect the living-making present which

results in this stream. What it does is intentionally modify the material of its basis by

presenting it "as if" it were other.

We can clarify this by proceeding up the hierarchy of re-presentations. At its

beginning, there is the original present which my functioning core re-presents in its

"living making present." The resulting temporalization re-presents the timeless now as if

it were successively present. We thus have the stream of impressional moments, each of

which appears only to depart into pastness. To engage in a perceptual synthesis, I must

retain them. This retention (or short term memory) re-presents the past moment as if it

were present. The same point holds for long term or ordinary remembering. The latter

re-presents my earlier action of perceptual synthesis. Remembering, I recall not just the

results of this syntheses, but also myself as engaged in perception. What I do is re-

present this synthesis as if it were presently occurring. In none of these cases do I

eliminate the basis for my re-presentations. Thus, my "living making present" does not

dispense with my original present. The latter still appears as the anonymity of my core.

In temporalizing, my core still appears as pre-temporal -- i.e., as that which is "now and

only now." Similarly, the retention of the impressional moment does not dispense with

its having departed. If it did, then the retained moment would be indistinguishable from

the present impressional moment. In other words, my re-presenting what I have made
 Notes
382

present would replace my originally functioning making present. But, as we cited

Husserl, the latter is not changed into the former. My original making present doesn't

become its re-presentation. Thus, to grasp the retained moment as past is only to

apprehend it as if it were present. It is to regard it as a temporal alternative to the

present, content-laden moment. The same point can be made with regard to ordinary

remembering. What it recalls is not transformed into a present perceiving. It is re-

presented as a past perceiving that is brought up as an alternative to my present

perceiving.

With empathy, we have a further modification, one which modifies the results of

our previous modifications. To form a self-transcending intention, I must re-present

another "ego of making present." The present which results from my making present

must be treated as if it were the Other's. To do this, I must re-present my memories as if

they were the Other's. Only in this way can I re-present and, hence, intend the Other's

present as if it were the leading edge of an alternative past. This, of course, involves the

whole hierarchy of modifications since an alternative past is a result of alternative

perceptual syntheses, alternative retentions and ultimately an alternative making present.

Here, we should note that to place empathy in this hierarchy of re-presentations is to

emphasize that it is also a modification which leaves its base intact. The re-presentation

directed to the Other does not change my self-representation. It does not imply that the

Other is present in the way that I am. What I re-present on the basis of my self-presence

is an alternative to this presence. As such, it is the object of a self-transcending intention.

The fundamental insight here is that all re-presentation is contingent. It, thus,

inherently has this "as if" character. It presents its material as if it were other, and its

own results are themselves capable of being re-presented as if they were other. From the

standpoint of the original present, whose presencing is the "lower stratum" of re-

presentation, these alternatives are all inherently possible. The re-presentation of this
 Notes
383

present which yields the impressional stream is its exhibition as one such alternative. It

is also the implicit presence of the could be other of this alternative. It is the alternative's

capacity to be re-presented as if it, itself, were other. Thus, I can re-present my past

impressional moment as if it were a present moment because, in terms of its origin, it

could just as well be made present now. Similarly, the independence of the primal

present is such that what counts as my past perceptual synthesis could just as well be a

present perceptual synthesis. The original present's capability of presenting what I

experience in different temporal orders, thus, signifies that I can re-present my

experiential life as if it were rearranged so as to form an Other's. Indeed, since re-

presentation achieves its object through the constant mode of taking an alternative to the

given and treating it as if it were present, its inevitable terminus is my re-presenting

myself as if I were another co-present subject with a different life.

We can put this in terms of our earlier remarks. According to the above, a

subject can re-present something as if it were other because, regarded in terms of the

origin of re-presentation, it could just as well be other. This means that the origin is not

tied to a specific re-presentation. It is, in fact, the independent ground of all its

subsequent re-presentations. Because of this, such independence stands as the condition

of the possibility of the transformations worked by re-presentation. As we earlier put

this, we re-present the independence of the origin in terms of what follows from it by

grasping the latter as contingent. The re-presented is seen as that which could have been

otherwise and, hence, as that which can, itself, be re-presented as if it were otherwise.

Accordingly, we can say that the givenness of a result of re-presentation is matched by an

intention to an alternative result. This intention is inherent in such givenness insofar as

the given is ultimately a re-presentation of the original presence which implies, in its

independence, both the presence of the given and that of its alternative. Re-presentation,

then, is necessarily the transforming regard which takes its object as if it were other. It
 Notes
384

must result in an alternative to the presence it re-presents. This follows since this

alternative is, itself, a re-presentation of what is inherent in the independence of the

origin of all presence. Thus, to take an example, such independence means that it is

possible for the primal present to presently appear as the moment which I take as past.

This possibility is re-presented through the transforming regard which takes this departed

moment as if it were present.

When I re-present departed moments as if they were present, I am, in fact, re-

presenting another essential characteristic of the original present. Objectively speaking, I

have "infinity existing only in the form of temporality, existing as the temporal

succession of finitudes" which successively depart into pastness. Pre-objectively,

however, this infinity "is included in the nunc stans" (Ms. E III 9, Nov. 5, 1931; HA XV,

Kern ed., pp. 379-80). Thus, the nunc stans (or original present) is the "all-at-once" of

"the temporal succession of finitudes" -- i.e., the successive impressional moments. I re-

present this all-at-once by re-presenting these departed moments as if they were still

present. This all-at-once character, insofar as it is re-presented, determines the character

of all subsequent re-presentations. It makes them always treat their objects as if they

were present. Thus, its ultimate result is my intending the co-presence of a fellow

subject. For Husserl, this co-presence is simply an objective re-presentation of the fact

that, pre-objectively, my now "is not mine as opposed to that of other human beings"

(Ms. C 3 I, p. 3). It re-presents the fact that in the original now, "I discover my now and

his now as existing in one" (Ms. C 17 I, HA XV, p. 332).

§6. The Formation of Self-Transcending Intentions

It is time to turn to the mechanics of empathy -- i.e., to the details of the process

by which I take the Other as an object of a self-transcending intention. Our chief text

here is a passage where Husserl completes his parallel between memory and empathy.
 Notes
385

Both are considered as particularizations of "memory" (Er-innerung) understood as a

general form of looking inward. He writes:

Transformation (Verwandlung), the transformation of the ego amidst the transformation

of consciousness and the transformation of the correlate of consciousness. All this is
inseparably one. All this is memory (Er-innerung). Its particularizations are [my]
ordinary remembering (gewöhnliche Erinnerung) of "what I have earlier experienced,"
[my] co-remembering (Miterrinerung) understood as the re-presentation of what counts
as co-present in the perceptual field but is not itself perceived, and [my] pre-
remembering (Vorerinnerung) which, beginning with what is self-present, re-presents the
pre-intended which agrees with this as what is to come, as what will be valid in the
future.

He then immediately adds:

Empathy, a novel particularization of this universal remembering, is also re-

presentation. It is a higher order re-presentation insofar as it transforms, at least
implicitly, all these re-presentations. In fact, however, every mode of re-
presentation can re-present the re-presentations of all other modes. Every mode
can be a transformation of them (Ms. B I 22, pp. 22-23).

According to this passage, Er-innerung may be described as a general form of looking

inward which re-presents and transforms what is inwardly present. Husserl's crucial,

though implicit, point is that the first three types of re-presentation -- ordinary

remembering, appresenting and anticipating -- are sufficient to give me my concreteness.

Together they define me as a subject who has a definitely given past and specific

anticipations with regard to the future. The transformation of these elements of my

concreteness thus yields a different subject. He is conceived as an alternate middle point

of an alternately specified temporal environment.

 Notes
386

Before we look more closely at this process, there are two things which must be

kept in mind. The first is the dependence of empathy on memory. Without the latter,

there are no objective Others as objects for my empathy. In Husserl's words, "As a

human being, I am objective along with my Others. The Others are not for me originally

objective from my memories (Erinnerungen) as something originally remembered. They

do, however, presuppose my memories at that according to which they are modifications"

(Ms. K III 4, p. 77, 1936). Our second point is that the process of modification is present

throughout the hierarchy of re-presentations. Thus, it is not as if I first become objective

and then modification sets to work to produce my objective Other. Rather, as we cited

Husserl, "... every mode of re-presentation can re-present the re-presentations of all other

modes. Every mode can be a transformation of them" (Ms. B I 22, pp. 22-23). This

means that in the process of my becoming objective to myself, I have an interplay of the

modes of re-presentation which achieve this objectivity. As we shall see, the lower

modes found the higher. I cannot anticipate unless I appresent; I cannot appresent unless

I remember. This, however, does not mean that I cannot remember what I appresented,

that I cannot appresent what I anticipate. Each higher mode is, in fact, subject to the

transformations occasioned by the lower. The result is the constant formation of

alternatives to the re-presentations which come together in my sense of my objective

being. When the latter is complete -- i.e., fully defined -- so are its alternatives. The

alternatives grow up in parallel with the elements for my self-representation. What we

have, then, is a co-grounding of my sense of self and my intentions to my Others. This

co-grounding allows me to say that "... I am who I am" -- i.e., a fully concrete self --

"only as bearing in myself the Other and all Others" (Ms. C 17 I, Sept. 1931; HA XV, p.

336). When I am concrete, the process of re-presentation which gives my definite status

is accomplished; and the process which intends my Others as distinct alternatives is also

complete.
 Notes
387

We can give the mechanics of this process by first turning to the stages by which

I achieve my definite status. In the passage we have cited, the first stage is that of

ordinary remembering. This, of course, is not the absolutely first stage since memory

implies that I have something to remember. Ordinary remembering re-presents the

action of a past perceptual synthesis. This synthesis presupposees short term memories --

i.e., my retentions of past impressional moments. For Husserl, then, my ordinary

remembering "points back to memories which are not yet memories of objects and to

memories which are not yet [objective] self-rememberings" (Ms. K III 4, p. 76). The

transformation worked by this short term memory is that of re-presenting the past

impressional moment as if it were present. Its result is my concreteness as a presently

perceiving self. This is a position taking self, a self which posits objects out of its

perceptual syntheses. Ordinary remembering adds to this concreteness by increasing its

temporal depth. It recalls what I have done or failed to do. As such, it is a re-

presentation of my past position taking selves --a treating them as if they were present.

What Husserl calls "co-remembering" extends this concreteness by further specifying the

objects which arise from my perceptual syntheses. It re-presents (or appresents) the

features of my surrounding world which count as co-present -- this, even though such

features are not directly perceived. Thus, in appresentation, I re-present the back of a

chair while I perceive the front. This second type of re-presentation leads to a third. In

"pre-remembering," I anticipate that I could see the back of the chair. The back of the

chair is taken as "agreeing" -- i.e., as fitting in harmoniously -- with the "self-present"

front. My concreteness in this case involves my futurity -- i.e., what I shall do or fail to

do.

It is easy to see the order of these types. I cannot anticipate unless I appresent.

Since I anticipate what I appresent -- e.g., the back of the chair -- the latter focuses the

intention of my anticipation. Similarly, I cannot appresent without my memories. I

 Notes
388

appresent the back of an object because fronts and backs have been paired in my

memories (See above, ). My memories, then, determine the intention of my

appresentation. They, in fact, specify its content. Thus, the more the present case

resembles what I recall, the more specific is my appresentation.

The transformation worked by these re-presentations is equally clear. Like

ordinary remembering, appresentation and anticipation re-present as present something

which is not, itself, present. Thus, in its bringing past experience to bear on the present,

appresentation takes what is not perceived -- e.g., the back of the chair -- as if it were

present. This "co-remembering" may be seen as a transformation of ordinary

remembering insofar as it treats a remembered relationship -- e.g., that between fronts

and backs -- as if it were co-given with my present perceptual experience. Anticipation

(or "pre-remembering") works a similar transformation on appresentation. It projects it

forward to the future thereby anticipating that the future will confirm my appresentation.

Here, I treat the not yet as if it were present -- i.e., as if its features were already those of

my present appresentation.

With this, we should note that in the actual process of my becoming concrete,

these modes of Er-innerung hardly ever occur in a pure form. My memories of myself

include the recall of my past appresentations and the anticipations which are based on

these. They help form the content of my remembering what I have done or failed to do.

What I have done is seen as a fulfillment of my past anticipations. What I have failed to

do is viewed as a lack of such fulfillment. The same point can be made by saying that to

the point that my anticipations are not an empty intending, they involve the expectation

that what I recall will, in its general features, be repeated. The structure of the

remembered, thus, prefigures the future I anticipate. This, of course, is why Husserl calls

anticipation a "pre-remembering."
 Notes
389

This description of the stages by which I achieve my concreteness is necessarily

one-sided. As we cited Husserl, "... I am who I am" -- i.e., a fully concrete subject --

"only as bearing in myself the Other and all Others." This means that my concreteness

implies the concreteness of my intentions to my Others. It also signifies that my self-

transcending intentions are inherent in the sense I have of myself as fully concrete. Thus,

to describe the stages by which I achieve my objective presence, I must take account of

the stages by which I form my intentions to Others.

This can be put in terms of Husserl's assertion that empathy is a "higher order re-

presentation," one which "transforms" the re-presentations which give me my

concreteness. As we pointed out, empathy's object is intended in terms of the alternatives

of such re-presentations. The Other is re-presented in my intention as having different

memories and, as a consequence, different appresentations and anticipations.

Accordingly, he is re-presented as having done what I have failed to do and, as not

having accomplished my particular actions. Hence, he is differently situated with respect

to his future. The latter is pre-figured by a different past. Now, these differences cannot

imply that he is intended as a subject whom I cannot encounter -- i.e., that I intend him as

occupying a world which is inaccessible to me. For Husserl, my concreteness -- i.e., my

objective presence in the world -- requires my intentions to him. This signifies that his

presence in the world is intended as a presence which helps to establish and confirm my

worldly presence. My Other and I must, therefore, be thought of as co-present subjects.

We must be taken as subjects who, in intending their objective presence in the world,

intend each other as part of the same world.

To see how the transformations worked by empathy achieve this result, we must

begin by recalling that a subject's objective status involves that of the world. He is

objective as part of an objective world. Now, the world's objectivity is defined in terms

of its universality -- i.e., its being apprehended as the same world for everyone. For
 Notes
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Husserl, the initial basis of this objectivity is my inner plurality. "Everyone," in the first

instance, is limited to the co-existing plurality of my re-presented past and future selves.

Each of these remembered and anticipated selves is re-presented as having a world, i.e.,

as having synthesized its unity out of his multiple experiences. Insofar as this unity is the

same for all, it is taken as continuously the same for me. When we turn to objectivity in

its full sense, the world's thereness for me is included as an element of its thereness for

everyone else. The world is taken as the same -- i.e., as exhibiting the same unity -- both

for myself and for my Others. Now, if we take empathy as a transformation of the re-

presentations which yield my inner plurality, it is clear that the second sense of

objectivity is actually an overlay on the first. The inner plurality which makes up my

Other is intended as a series of alternatives to my own inner plurality. This means that

each of these alternatives is taken as a remembered or anticipated self who has his world

and that these worlds come together in a unity which defines a central self who

continuously has one and the same world. This world is a variant, an overlay of my

world. In fact, it is my world; though it is re-presented, not as I experience it, but as I

could experience it through an alternative course of action. We essentially say the same

thing when we note that the possibility which I re-present as my Other's world is a

possibility which is inherent in my world. It appears whenever I re-present what I have

done or failed to do. The notion of my failing to do what I could have done implies that

my world was such that I could have acted otherwise.

While mentioning anticipations, the above mainly relies on my remembering.

Indeed, it could have been formulated exclusively in terms of my memories and their

transformations. This is not the case for the process which establishes my own presence

as an object in the world. To consider this presence as the same for myself and my

Others, I must bring in appresentation. When I do, my Other appears as the unity of the

re-presentations which vary my appresentations of myself as "there." Let us say that I

 Notes
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stand facing a chair. I perceive its front and appresent its back. My appresentations of

its back can be varied. I can conceive of an appressentation which is directed to its front.

This implies a standpoint which directly presents what I appresent -- i.e., the chair's back.

The schema can be applied to my bodily presence. Its objective thereness for me --

understood as a thereness which is located in space -- is always a function of my self-

appresentations. Given my permanent position in the "here," I can only appresent, never

directly perceive, myself as "there." Thus, my bodily unity is, for me, a synthesis of such

appresentations. If I vary these, then I can conceive of the standpoints from which I

could be directly perceived. A synthesis of such variations would yield the unity of my

bodily appearing for the Other who successively occupies such standpoints. Since the

unity of the perceived is correlated to that of the perceiver, it would also yield the re-

presentation of myself as if I were this Other. Here, the synthetic unity of my

consciousness is re-presented as the Other's unity as he synthesizes what he experiences

-- i.e., my body -- from his successive standpoints. 7

Two conclusions follow from this analysis. The first is that my thereness for

myself and for my Other are related constructs, the second being an overlay on the first.

Since it is established by the apperceptions of my self-apperceptions, my thereness for

the Other must be harmonious with my thereness for myself. The second point is that the

Other whom I intend as perceiving myself is a transformation of my appresenting self.

This is a transformation accomplished by appresenting my acts of self-appresentation and

synthesizing the results into a harmonious perceiving of myself. The increase of

concreteness this brings about is clear. I and my Other do not just share a common

world, we are also co-present within it. By appresenting my self-appresenting, I intend

the Other as perceiving myself. Adding another layer of appresenting, I can take the

other as appresenting his self-appresentations. With this, I take him as intending myself

as someone perceiving him. The result is our co-presence as mutual perceivers.

 Notes
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The last stage of concreteness is given by anticipation. Its form is Husserl's "pre-

remembering which, beginning with the self-present, re-presents the intended which

agrees with this as what is to come ..." Subjectively regarded, what is "self-present" is

my already accomplished "thisness." It is my presence as a finite subject who possesses

"these" characteristics and not others. This finitude involves my memories of what I

have done or failed to do. Even more immediately, it involves my "fresh past," i.e., what

I have just accomplished. Accordingly, it includes the standpoint -- the "here" in the

world -- I have just taken up. As Husserl writes, "This 'fresh past' ('frische

Vergangenheit') projects its structure on the future. The future is harmoniously

prefigured according to the constituted past ... the ego expects that what is prefigured will

itself become present through actualization, through the fulfilling present" (Ms. C 4, p. 1,

Aug. 1930). Thus, having taken up my standpoint in a new "here," I expect that my

surrounding world will show itself in a manner which is harmonious with my earlier

standpoint which, itself, is taken as fulfilling or failing to fulfill the anticipations of still

earlier standpoints. In this way, my present is linked to my successively given pasts.

As already indicated, the re-presentation of alternatives to my past has a

cascading effect. Insofar as such alternatives vary my "here," they vary what I appresent.

As such, they also vary what I anticipate -- i.e., what I intend from the standpoint of the

"here." In other words, these different pasts make me prefigure the future differently

and, hence, envision alternative futures. Now, these futures are not those prefigured by

that past which has yielded my present thisness. They do, however, remind me that what

is prefigured by my past is not predetermined by it. Thus, a regard to the could have

been otherwise of my past situates my present thisness in a horizon of alternative

possibilities. It makes me regard myself as contingent -- i.e., as "one of the possibilities,

precisely the one which has actually occurred." As a consequence, my own present

thisness has an open character. It, too, is seen as implying its own range of possibilities.
 Notes
393

What I shall do or fail to do is not determined by it. Rather, my actions are seen as

determining which of these possibilities will be actualized. To put this in terms of

anticipation, we can say that the sense of the future has a double horizon. Those futures

which are not prefigured by my past are seen as the futures which I have foregone

through my past actions. Those which are still within my powers are those which I

confront in my present choice of a course of action. In anticipating the latter, I anticipate

that the future will continue the relation between the could have been otherwise of my

past and the alternatives to my present thisness. Thus, I take my present status as

pointing to the future in such a way that I confront the alternative possibilities of my

future could be otherwise.

The origin of this double horizon is, of course, the independence of the primal

present. Re-presented in terms of the past, this independence is re-presented as the

contingency, the could-have-been-otherwise of my past. The cascading effect of the re-

presentation of such alternatives gives me the horizon of futures which are based on pasts

which are different than mine. When I anticipate, the same relation is projected into the

future. Thus, in anticipation, I re-present the future as present, thereby treating my

present manner of being and behaving as if it were past. Once again, the independence

of the primal present manifests itself in the contingency of its re-presentations. I am

confronted with the could-have-been-otherwise of what, in anticipation, appears as my

past being and behaving. Correlatively, I re-present as present the alternative futures

which could spring from such alternatives. To add an important, if obvious, point, we

may note that nothing in my originally present being prevents this transforming action of

re-presentation. A direct regard to my present being reveals only anonymity -- an

anonymity which neither confirms nor rejects any alternative. This is why I must

anticipate in order to concretely regard alternative actions resulting in alternative futures.

In re-presenting my present on-going action as past, I give it the temporal distance which
 Notes
394

allows it to be objectively determinate. I thus grasp it as having the determinate

characteristics which can be varied so as to yield its specific alternatives.

Each of these alternative courses of action, if followed through, would yield a

different future. Yet, given my finitude -- i.e., my status as occupying this (and not

another) standpoint -- only one of these futures can be brought about. In a certain sense,

such actualization involves a double result. The fulfillment of my intentions when I

choose a given course of action results in my growing concreteness. It adds to the

content of my accomplished "thisness." It also results in my externalizing a whole series

of possibilities which were originally inherent in my thisness. Thus, the fulfillment of

my intentions to my chosen thisness is also the fulfillment of its alternatives in their

otherness. They become foregone possibilities -- possibilities which I could have but did

not realize. In other words, the fulfillment of their otherness is one with my achieved

thisness ruling them out.

To apply this to my intentions to my Other, I must see him as having an

alternative past, an alternative present with different appresentations and, hence, as

having an alternative future. In this process, I grasp him as other than myself and yet as

like me. He is a different subject insofar as he is taken as embodying possibilities which

my achieved thisness has excluded from my future. He is like me insofar as he is taken

as fitting in with the horizon of my alternatives. In the latter case, he is understood as a

possibility of being and behaving which would have been instantiated in my "this" if my

life had taken a different course.

To see how far such empathy extends is to see what could be varied in the notion

of a life. I can re-present what my life would have been had I made different choices,

had I, for example, pursued a different career. I can also imagine what it would have

been if its uncontrollable factors had been different. Thus, I can imagine what my life

would have been had the circumstances of my birth being different -- i.e., had I been
 Notes
395

brought up in a different environment. The limit of such variations is set by Husserl's

statement: "The first thing, then, is the fact of the I am (ego). This fact, however, only

exists in the style of infinitely open possibilities which distinguish themselves through

the actuality of life itself" (Ms. B I 13, VI, p. 3, Oct. 1, 1931). As we earlier remarked,

the "fact of the I am" is the fact of the living present. This present cannot be varied since

it must be given for a life to be given. Its givenness, however, does not limit the

possibilities of a life. As an aspect of the absolute, this present inherently implies the

totality of life's possibilities. In a certain sense, then, we can say with Husserl: "The

totality of human possibilities is present in the newborn child, while it is fate, a matter of

fact (Schicksal, Factum) which of these will become developed capabilities (Vermögen)

and which will ultimately become actualized in their [initial] environment and in the

future environments they [subsequently] enter" (Ms. E III 9, Nov. 5, 1931; HA XV, Kern

ed., p. 384, note 1). This, of course, does not mean that every child has the potentiality

to become, say, a Mozart. The focus, here, is on the totality of possibilities, a totality

which is at the basis of every "this" including that of the newborn. Such a totality is,

properly speaking, prior to the newborn since his birth is already a "fact" which implies

the limitations of finitude. As such, it already implies the existence of some

potentialities rather than others.8 Accordingly, the fact of birth is already an

achievement of a thisness which forecloses possibilities.

The foreclosure of possibilities continues throughout a person's life. Each of his

actions cuts off a possible future in order to actualize another. Thus, in choosing to do

this rather than that, I avail myself of the possibilities inherent in the this and externalize

those afforded by the that. Insofar as I intend the Other as the person I would be if I did

have a different set of anticipations, the process of foreclosure is matched by the growing

concreteness of my intentions to my Others. Each choice, in foreclosing a possibility

which was available to me, enriches the stock of alternatives to my anticipations. Each
 Notes
396

such alternative allows me a fresh intention to my possible Others. We can put this in

terms of the Latin root of "intention" which signifies a stretching out or forth. My

intention to my Other is my stretching forth to a possibility which was originally

available to me through the ground of my thisness. This means that the otherness of the

Other -- i.e., the fact that I must extend myself to meet him -- is a function of my own

"stretching out." It is, in part, a function of my externalization, through my choices, of

the possibilities originally available to me. Correlatively, this otherness is a function of

what my choices result in -- i.e., the growing concreteness of my thisness.

With regard to the newborn child, we can say that the fact of my birth already

implies a multitude of Others since it implies a finite thisness and hence the foreclosure

of a whole range of possible futures. Such subjects are not like me in the sense that I

could have chosen to have a life like theirs. They are my alternatives on the level of the

original givenness of the circumstances of my life. They are like me insofar as they

express what I could have been given had I been a different manifestation of my ground.

To see how my intentions to my Others confirm and establish my concreteness,

we must again consider the Other as an extension of my "I can." As including my future,

my concreteness involves the anticipation that my theses concerning my worldly being

will, in fact, be confirmed. In this regard, the future is seen as an extension of my "I can"

-- i.e., my ability to confirm these theses. Thus, I assume that "if my powers were

extended on and on, ... then the presumptive certainties [of my theses] would also

disclose themselves according to the style of my experiencing life" (Ms. C 8 7, p. 19,

Oct. 1929). I assume that if I could go further, then my extended "I can" would confirm

what my past prefigures with regard to my future. Now, as we recall, for Husserl the

thought of this extension involves my Others. It leads me to posit them as actually

having the extension which I anticipate. As we earlier put this, I intend my Others "as

possessing the 'I can' whose actual extension is required for actual certainty" (See above,
 Notes
397

). This means that I transfer to Others "in an analogizing, assimilating, transcending

apperception" my anticipated "I can." I re-present this "I can" as present, thus assuming

that my anticipated experience is presently available to my Others. The result is my

intending my Others as persons who can confirm my theses. Thus, the Other in the

"there" is intended as having the experience which I anticipate I could have had if I had

taken up his standpoint. With this, I treat our collective experience as harmonious -- i.e.,

as confirming my theses from alternative perspectives. Insofar as these theses concern

myself as objectively present, this confirmation helps to establish what I take to be my

concreteness.

Let us take a closer look at the role that pre-remembering plays in the above. Its

general form is that of re-presenting the future as if it were present. Thus, pre-

remembering re-presents as present the self which I anticipate in choosing this rather than

that course of action. To result in the re-presentation of my Other, pre-remembering

must focus, not on what I anticipate, but rather on what I anticipated in the past. Its

material must be given by memory. I must, then, remember the alternatives which once

were included as possibilities of my thisness. These are the alternatives which once

confronted me in the choice of expressing my "I can." Each possible choice had its series

of anticipations and each was thought of as leading to a disclosure of the world

"according to the general style of my experiencing life." Since I could only choose one

course of action at a time, most of these anticipated disclosures never occurred. Now,

when I remember my earlier action of choosing, I treat it as if it were presently

occurring. This means that I treat the harmonious experience I anticipated but never

followed up as if it still lay in my future. When I turn my pre-remembering on this

"future" experience, I re-present it as if it were present. I re-present myself as having had

the experience which, in fact, I chose not to have. The result is a re-presentation of

myself in terms of an excluded "I can" -- an "I can" which once was anticipated as
 Notes
398

confirming my theses. Considered as present, this "I can" -- which is different than my

own -- becomes intended as that of a co-present subject. The latter is taken as a subject

who can confirm my theses. Pre-remembering thus leads me to intend the self I once

anticipated as actually present in the form of the Other. It does this continually as my

growing concreteness closes off some possibilities and opens up others. This process

continually multiplies my intentions to my Others since the more I become defined as a

this, the more my finitude implies the horizon of its alternatives. As a consequence, my

other egos define my thisness ever more closely and are seen as confirming it from their

perspectives.

This analysis simply follows Husserl's dictum: "... every mode of re-

presentation can re-present the re-presentations of all other modes. Every mode can be a

transformation of them." Let us conclude by observing that we can add the mode of

appresentation to the above description of pre-remembering transforming memory. In

appresentation, I take my Other as regarding me as someone who perceives him. When I

apply this to the above, I reverse the relation just delineated between self and Others. I

take myself as an alternative to these Others. I, thus, understand myself as someone

confirming their presumptive certainties with regard to their theses. As a consequence, I

and my Others are seen as forming a continuously developing, self-confirming totality.

§7. Empathy and Freedom

Let us turn from the detailed analyses of our preceding section to consider a

conclusion which is implicit in their arguments. They imply that empathy and freedom

have the same basis. This follows because both involve the sense of alternatives. If

empathy is the intending of the Other in terms of my alternatives, freedom is the choice

between alternatives. Without my sense that there are alternatives, I would not be aware

of having aims in life -- i.e., of confronting choices, of freely deciding to do -- and to be

 Notes
399

-- "this" rather than "that." Such awareness, like that of empathy, is based on the all-

inclusive nature of my ground. It is because my ground implicitly contains every

alternative and is, in fact, that in and through which I act, that my action has the feeling

of freedom. As springing from the ground, it always involves a choice between

alternatives.

To express this in terms of re-presentation, we can say that the root of my

freedom is the independence of my ground. Because the ground could have expressed

itself in an alternative objectification, its independence signifies its ability to surpass any

particular objectification. I re-present this independence by being aware of the

alternatives to the already given and, in anticipation, by being aware of the alternatives

which could be given through my actions. The fact that such alternatives are implicit in

the presenting core of human action means that they are alternatives which could be

made present by such action. Thus, in anticipation, I do not confront them as abstract

possibilities, but rather as possible choices of a course of action. Since each such choice

implies an alternative anticipation of what I shall be, I have my sense of freedom in my

choice of my "this."

The above does not imply that there are no limits to my embodied freedom.

Equally, it cannot be taken as asserting that there is no distinction between active and

passive constitution. If subjects through their freedom could break the pre-individual,

passively given basis for their constitution, then each could be considered as purely

spontaneous in his constitution. This would make impossible the notion of an

intersubjective harmony (See above, ).

To avoid this result, we must first draw a parallel between the contingency of

freedom and that of constitution. Their contingency results from their self-surpassing

quality; and this is correlated to the surpassing quality of their ground. In each case,

what is surpassed is the given. Thus, a free act cannot be completely determined by what
 Notes
400

has gone before. It has an ultimately factual quality which means that what is given in

time does not completely determine its present choice. There is, then, an irreducible

element of contingency (of not being determined beforehand) in both the choosing and

the given it results in. Now, the same contingency follows from the surpassing quality of

all constitution, be this active or passive. What is constituted is contingent because it is

not self-determining. This means that its givenness is surpassed by what will be given.

Each addition to the given, each new content-laden moment -- is not completely

determined by what preceded it and, hence, each is a surpassing of the latter. So

regarded, the contingency of the given which results from freedom is the given's

contingency qua constituted. Both are considered as resulting from the pure spontaneity

of the absolute which underlies all givenness. Thus, the alternative selves which I

confront in choosing my "this" are the possible results of such spontaneity. Similarly, the

re-presentation of such spontaneity in terms of my present action appears as my freedom

in choosing between these alternatives. When I turn to consider myself as an already

constituted thisness, I cannot say my givenness nullifies my freedom. Since my being as

presently acting is never objectively given, I cannot take what is objectively given -- i.e.,

my achieved thisness -- as presently acting. The conclusion follows whether I take my

achieved thisness as actively or passively constituted. In neither case does the constituted

lose its character of being surpassed. In neither case does it present itself as active -- i.e.,

as a self which is presently choosing a "this."

Given the above, we can maintain what seem to be opposing doctrines.

We can say with Husserl that "the individual, egological life is passively constituted in

immanent time" (Ms. B I 32, I, p. 16, May or Aug., 1931). We can also assert our

freedom in choosing our thisness. The key point here, as in the whole of this chapter, is

the assertion of the duality of the individual's essence. My essence is such that I can

claim both my identity with my ground and my difference from it. Qua constitutively
 Notes
401

given, I am not free. I am free only to the point that, in my primal constitution, I exist in

coincidence with my ground. So regarded, my freedom can be said to be a manifestation

of being in its distinction from essence -- i.e., a manifestation of the being per se which

cannot be limited to a given entity with its particular essence. Concretely, this means

that my freedom is my coincidence with the primal present -- the present "which is

actuality in the proper sense as that which is primally productive" (Ms. C 17, HA XV, p.

348). This present makes everything be present; yet since it is not inherent in the

objective givenness of individual entities, it gives them only a contingent presence.

Now, my duality is such that I act in and through the original present; yet I can only

objectively grasp myself in terms of what is not originally present. As a consequence,

my freedom always appears to be transforming itself into the opposite. It is manifested

as a surpassing of the given which results in the constitution of a new given. It, thus,

follows the paradigm of the original present which surpasses the given by a giving which

results in yet another given. The resulting objectively fixed order of time is, we can say,

the concealment of the spontaneity which generated it. Here, the fixed character of

memory, which comes with already accomplished time, designates what is not in my

power. What is in my power is the addition to this. In other words, my coincidence with

my ground -- i.e., my freedom -- is my capability to surpass my given being as presented

through my memory.

We can combine this with the notion of the passive constitution of my life "in

immanent time" by noting that such constitution essentially concerns memory. It

concerns the defining environment which results from my memories as they occur in

immanent time. Now, to assert that there is a level of passive constitution is to observe

with Husserl that "transcendental subjectivity is not free in its possibilities of constituting

beings or non-beings. It must constitute beings" (Ms. K III 1, viii, p. 4, 1935). This

follows from the fact that the dissolution of its surrounding world is its own dissolution
 Notes
402

as an active center. The freedom to break off the passive synthesis which results in this

world is, therefore, a self-cancelling abstraction. If a subject could engage in it, he

would cancel his objective givenness. He would, in other words, disrupt that part of the

duality of his essence which defines him as a central actor.

The distinction between active and passive synthesis is clear from the above.

Passive synthesis concerns what must be accomplished if I am to maintain my

"individual, egological life." Active synthesis concerns the type of life I lead. It

functions in my choice of the type of self I want to become. As resulting from my

freedom, this becoming is a surpassing of my given being as it is presented through

memory. Such surpassing constantly adds to memory, constantly reshaping my given

being. The process is such that the past necessarily pre-figures the outlines of my future

since the addition of my memories cannot disrupt their defining me as a self.

These remarks on freedom allow us to give an extra dimension to the passage of

the Meditations:

... that I, who am, can be conscious of someone else -- someone I am not, someone who
is other than me -- presupposes that not all of my modes of consciousness belong to the
circle of those which are modes of my self-consciousness. ... the problem is how to
understand the fact that the ego, in itself, has (and can always construct anew)
intentionalities of such a new kind, intentionalities with a sense of being whereby it
totally transcends its own being (CM, Strasser ed., p. 135).

The being which is transcended is my being in its thisness. The modes of consciousness

which are not apprehensions of my thisness are those directed to its alternatives. In the

Meditations, the condition of the possibility of the escape from my thisness through

transcending intentions is not yet given. We confront the teaching that what I am

directly given is always my own. It comes together to form my "this," i.e., the sense of
 Notes
403

my being as a given, concrete individual in my world. It is Husserl's addition of the

doctrine of the surpassing ground of my "this" which provides the key to my constant

self-transcendence. The absolute confounds my "this" in its objective anonymity, in its

escape from being characterized as a "this." Its all-inclusiveness situates the "this" as

contingent, as a member of a horizon which contains its alternate possibilities. It also

gives my essence its dual character. I am more than the "this" which I objectively grasp.

Acting out of the ground of my being, I constantly surpass my objective being.

To put this in terms of freedom, we can say that the formation of transcending

intentions -- intentions to "someone I am not" -- is already inherent in my confrontation

with my future possibilities. My intentions to what I could be are structured by the

duality of my essence. On the one hand, they are anticipations arising from the

givenness of my past. On the other hand, they surpass this givenness by virtue of my

coincidence with the origin of givenness. The same point holds with regard to their

fulfillment. The duality of my essence is such that only one of these possibilities can be

actualized by me. The fulfillment of my intention to my chosen "this" is, as we said, the

externalization of its alternative possibilities. They become foregone possibilities,

possibilities which transcend my present capabilities. This transcendence is a result of

the objective part of my essence, the part which gives me my individuality as a center. In

coincidence with my ground, I can intend multiple possibilities of being and behaving.

Yet, in active synthesis, my freedom is always finite. I can only act to fulfill one of these

alternativse since the fulfillment of more than one would disrupt the identity of my life.

It would result in my dissolution as an individual center of the world which defines me as

a "this."

Since freedom and empathy have the same basis, the same point can be made

with regard to my intentions to my Others. They are also structured by the duality of my

essence. From the perspective of my ground, what I re-present through my memories is

 Notes
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not distinguished from what I re-present through empathy. This follows insofar as the

ground of the presence of each is the same. The separation of memory and empathy

comes through the second part of my essence -- that of my objectively present being. In

other words, it comes through the fulfillment of my intentions to my chosen "this" which

is also an alienation of its alternatives. Thus, I remember the possibilities of being and

behaving which I chose to actualize; while in empathy, the alternatives of such

possibilities function as the elements of my intentions to my Others.

The same duality structures the way in which the appearing Other fulfills my

intentions to him. Such fulfillment is a matter of his appearing as my alternative -- as my

alter ego. He must show himself as other than me -- i.e., as manifesting a possibility of

being and behaving which transcends the capabilities of my achieved "thisness." Yet, in

his actions, he must also show that he is like me. Our similarity refers to our common

origin, i.e., to that part of our essence which is the same. Accordingly, I recognize him

as like me insofar as his actions re-present one of the possibilities of being and behaving

which is implicit in our common origin. I recognize this as a possibility which was

originally open to me or, by extension, as a possibility which could have been open to me

if the circumstances of my life had been different. In either case, he is similar insofar as

his action exhibits a possibility of selfhood which is implicit in the freedom which is at

the origin of my own self-surpassing. Thus, he is seen as like me insofar as his actions

manifest the freedom which is the basis for my self-development.

To fill out this picture, we must recall Husserl's assertion that the ego is "self-

shaping" in its self-development. This means that when it finds "itself in successive time,

it is, in fact, exhibiting its full present, exhibiting what it is now, what [pre-objectively]

lies within it as an ego" (Ms. A V 5, p. 10, Jan. 1933). What is pre-objectively now

designates that part of my essence which is common to myself and my Other. It

designates my primordiality as containing "all time and world." Implicit within it is not
 Notes
405

just my bodily appearing but also the bodily appearance of the Other. Both are part of

this primordiality's objective exhibition as it unfolds (or "finds") itself in time. In this

context, the Other's appearing is an exhibition to me in my situatedness -- a situatedness

which points to the objectively finite aspect of my essence. It is also an exhibition of me

insofar as my functioning is one with this primordiality taken as the non-finite aspect of

my essence. Thus, the possibility which the Other actualizes is inherent in me because

one aspect of my essence -- the aspect which makes me free -- is this primordiality. As

something foregone, as a possibility which is permanently other, the possibility exhibited

by my fellow subject also has its basis in me. Yet this time its basis is the aspect of my

essence which makes me an already situated, finite "this."

This leads us to take note of a theme which will be central to our last chapter.

The duality of my essence is such that the process of my self-shaping can be described in

teleological terms. A teleological process is one which is determined by the not-yet.

This means that what will be accomplished by this process is not just its goal but also its

determining ground or cause. Let us apply this to Husserl's assertion that the ego, "in

finding itself in successive time," is actually "exhibiting what it is now." This statement

implies that the ego is, qua now, what it will be in time. What it will be is its not-yet, its

goal. What it is now in a pre-objective sense is the primordiality which grounds its

action. If what the ego will be is implicit in the ground of its action, if in some sense the

two are identical, then its self-shaping can be called teleological. The goal designates

what will be; but this can be seen as grounding the process of the ego's actualization

insofar as the possibilities of the goal are coincident with those of the ground of the ego's

actualization. Here, the duality of the ego's essence allows us to call it self-actualizing.

Its full essence includes not just the "thisness" which is its goal, but also the primordiality

which brings the latter about.

 Notes
406

Our conclusion is essentially unaffected by the fact that such primordiality

implies more than the "thisness" which is the ego's finite goal. That its primordiality

includes "all time and world" means that it implies more than what the ego can exhibit

through its non-transcendent intentions. Thus, if the ego achieves its goal through its

exhibiting the possibilities of its ground, its goal actually implies more than itself. In

other words, because the possibilities inherent in its ground surpass what it can intend as

itself alone, it must re-present what "lies within it as an ego," not just as its own

possibilities, but also as the possibilities of those Others who are intended as establishing

and confirming the thisness which is its goal.

The same teleological identification of the ground and the goal can be applied to

freedom. This is also an identification which implies my Others since my freedom

involves my sense of alternatives. To put this in terms of leaving open, it can be said

that, as free, I always possess the horizon of my empathy. I have the sense of my could

have been otherwise, which means that my being and behaving leave open the

possibilities of Others. Now, as we said, the surpassing quality of the ground is matched

by the "leaving open" of that which it grounds (See above, ). This indicates that

freedom is not just rooted in the independence of my ground. In a specific sense, it is my

ground. Freedom determines (or grounds) my being as a self that preserves itself through

its choices and actions. It allows me to preserve my unity by allowing me to constantly

correct myself as I take positions based on my experience. This determination, however,

is teleological. The content of my freedom is my future possibilities regarded as goals.

As such, it is determination by the not-yet.

The crucial point with regard to such determination is that a plurality of results is

inherent in it. Freedom cannot be limited to producing the self I shall become. If it

were, it would not be real, but illusory freedom. Real freedom involves the spontaneity

of not being determined beforehand. It is, in fact, the openness of my ground projected
 Notes
407

forward as the openness of my goal. This openness is its inclusion of multiple

possibilities and is, itself, mirrored by my openness to these. With regard to myself, this

openness appears as my freedom in choosing my "this." With regard to Others, it

appears as the openness of my empathy. The fulfillment of both considered as intentions,

follows from my primordiality being both a ground and a goal -- i.e., something which,

containing its own cause, is self-shaping. Thus, through my surpassing primordiality, I

exist as part of a process which surpasses me. It is because of this that I possess the

"distance" -- the openness -- in which I can form my intentions to my future "thisness"

and to my Others. The same reason allows me to say that I exist as part of a process

which can fulfill such intentions.

The basic phenomenon, here, is that of my primal present's remaining not-yet by

containing more than what it objectively presents. This "more" is not just the freedom at

the core of my being. It is also the non-appearing self of the Other. As that which

distinguishes human from merely mechanical behavior, it is the object of my transfer.

This transfer can be made because freedom as self-surpassing inherently involves self-

pluralization. It implies something more than what can be given by any specific

individual.

Freedom, thus, appears as the ground of my leaving open and, hence, of my

intentions to Others. It also appears as the goal of such intentions insofar as what fulfills

them is the manifestation of freedom in the appearance of the Other. He is recognized as

like me insofar as his actions imply more than himself. He is seen as a self insofar as he

acts to surpass himself.

 Notes
408

CHAPTER VII
TEMPORALITY AND TELEOLOGY

§1. The "Teleological Ground" of Temporalization

Husserl declares that "teleology ..., [taken] as an ontological form, determines

the universal being of transcendental subjectivity" (Ms. E III 9, Nov. 5, 1931; HA XV,

Kern ed., p. 378). He speaks of the teleology "immanent" within subjects "as the form of

their individual being, as the form of all the forms in which subjectivity exists" (Ibid., p.

380). He then goes on to assert that "teleology can be exhibited as that which concretely

and individually determines, that which ultimately makes possible and thereby actualizes

all being in its totality" (Ibid.).

These far-reaching claims can be understood in terms of a series of assumptions.

Teleology can be taken as determining "all being" if we assume that it determines

transcendental subjectivity in its constitution of every type of being. The constitutive

process is inherently temporal. As we cited Husserl, it is the result of the "welling up" of

time. Specifically, egological action "is a primal welling up, a creative allowing to

depart" of the constituted -- i.e., of the egological acts and their objects -- in time (See

Ms. B III 9, pp. 13-14, Oct.-Dec., 1931). If we assume that this "primal welling up" is

teleologically determined, then so is the constitution which it results in. Teleology, thus,

becomes "the form of all the forms" in which subjectivity manifests itself when we

assume that it is the form of the temporality which constitutively grounds subjective

existence -- i.e., its existence as an active center. 1

We can reformulate these assumptions in terms of Husserl's statement:

"Teleological creatures (Wesen) live in a universal teleological temporality, a temporality

in which a specific teleological causality has its form ..." (Ms. K III 4, p. 48, 1934-35).

They possess this temporality because "each transcendental ego has something innate.
 Notes
409

Within itself, it innately bears the teleological ground of its streaming, constituting,

transcendental life. This is a life where the ego, in temporalizing its world, temporalizes

itself as a human being" (Ms. E III 9, p. 11). This statement identifies what is "innate" to

an ego with what functions as the ground of its temporalization. The latter, of course, is

the primal present. As we cited Husserl, this present is what is "primally temporalizing".

To call this ground "teleological" is, thus, to assume the teleological nature of this

present. We can thus say that, for Husserl, the universality of teleology is premised upon

the teleology of the "constituting, transcendental" lives of individual egos; but this

assumes the teleological structuring of what is "primally generating" -- i.e., the primal

present understood as the ground of these constituting lives.

The above may be applied to the arising of individual egos and also to the

community of egos. As we cited Husserl, "The ego, itself, is constituted as a temporal

unity. As a lasting and remaining ego, it is an already acquired (and, in continuous

acquisition, a continuously further acquired) ontical unity" (Ms. C 17 Sept. 20-22, 1931;

HA XV, 348). This unity is that of the ego as an active center of its life. If the

temporality which constitutes this unity is teleological, then so is the very coming to be

of the ego. We can, thus, speak with Husserl, of "the new awakening (Erwachen) of egos

as genuine egos, as centers of acts in relation to a surrounding world, the awakening,

therefore, of [their] constitutions of 'existents,' ultimately, of a world-horizon -- as a

teleology included in the universal teleology" (Ms. E III 5, Sept. 1933; HA XV, Kern

ed., pp. 595-96). Teleology, in determining temporality, determines everything which

follows from it, including our arising as egos. The same point holds for the

intersubjective community. The teleological structuring of temporalization allows us to

identify "the awakening (Erwachen) of transcendental all-subjectivity" with "the

awakening (Wachwerden) of the teleology immanent within it ..." (Ms. E III 9, Nov. 5,

1931, HA XV, 380). This teleology is understood as determining the forms of its
 Notes
410

collective life. This means that intersubjective relations are considered to be

teleologically structured. As a consequence, our recognition of Others involves not just a

focus on the present but also on the not-yet. It involves a recognition of the goals which

determine both our individual and collective actions.

As we shall see, the consequences of this view will ultimately lead to a

transformation of the notion of intersubjectivity. The "problem" of recognizing Others

will ultimately become located as a problem for practical reason. First, howver, we must

turn our attention to the premise behind all of these statements, that of the teleological

constitution of time. Our immediate effort will be to follow Husserl's arguments as he

proceeds from our apprehension of time to the "teleological ground" of temporal

constitution.

§2. Time Consciousness and its Diagram

When we first mentioned the temporal reduction, we said that our sense of

extended time is dependent on the ordering of our retentions and protentions (our short

term memories and anticipations). This ordering constitutes our sense that our

experiences occupy different positions in extended time. A bracketing of all

consideration of retentions and protentions is, in fact, a bracketing of the sense of

extended time. Its result is a reduction which Husserl characterizes as "a radical

'limitation' to the living present," the present which is "not a modality of time" (See

above, ). These remarks were made only in passing. Our present focus,

however, demands that we ask: What, precisely, is the phenomenological meaning of the

terms, "retention" and "protention"? How does their ordering constitute our sense of

time?

The easiest way to specify the meaning of "retention" is through a pair of

diagrams which Husserl provides. First, however, we must add a word of caution.
 Notes
411

Following Husserl, we will be speaking of "now points" and "impressional moments."

There are, however, no such points. As Husserl notes, the now-point or discrete

impressional moment "is only an ideal limit, something abstract which can be nothing for

itself." He adds that "this ideal now is not distinct toto coelo from the next now, but

rather continuously mediates itself with the latter" (Zur Phaenomenologie des inneren

Zeitbewusstseins, ed. R. Boehm, Haag, 1966, p. 40, hereafter cited as HA X). In other

words, just as a continuous line is not made up of discrete points, although points can be

identified by cutting the line, so time should not be conceived as made up of distinct

moments. It, too, is a continuum. Indeed, its continuous quality is implicit in its

representation by the continuous lines of the time diagrams.

Behind this continuity is, we may recall, the lack of any inherent distinction

beween time's moments. Insofar as such moments are not per se tied to definite sensuous

contents, they do not inherently exhibit what could distinguish one moment from the

next. As we earlier put this, their what -- or rather their inherent lack of a what -- is

always the same. Another, teleologically oriented reason for the moment's being

"nothing for itself" will be explored by us later. This will involve the moment's

dependence.

With this, we may turn to the diagrams:

 Notes
412
Use Word 6.0c or later to

view Macintosh picture.

We shall begin with an objective reading of these diagrams. By this, we mean a reading

which takes time as something already given and attempts to analyze the components of

our sense of this givenness. The first such component is the series of successively given

now points. The horizontal lines of our diagrams designate successively given time.

Reading from left to right, each of the points of these lines represent later moments. The

vertical lines designate a second component. They represent the "horizon of pastness"

which is associated with each given moment. To descend the vertical is to enter into an

increasing sense of pastness. Husserl draws the diagonal lines of his diagrams to indicate

the connection of this sense of pastness with the sense of successively given time. If we

exclude its topmost point, the points of vertical line EA' can be considered as the

endpoints of lines drawn parallel to the diagonal line AA'. With the advance of time --

i.e., with the movement of line EA' to the right -- such end points descend along EA'.

This sinking down represents an increase in the sense of pastness associated with such

end points. The diagonal lines, which connect these points to the moments of

successively given time, thus represent the "sinking down" into pastness of such

moments. The moments, having been experienced as present, are experienced as "just
 Notes
413

past" and then as just "just past" and so forth. The experience is one of time's expiration,

of time's passing away -- which requires, of course, an experience of time's moments as

expired -- i.e., as having passed away.

When Husserl draws the diagonal lines AA', PP' parallel to each other, this

parallelism designates the equitability of the sense of expiration. Contents are

apprehended as sinking into pastness at the same rate. This signifies that their original

order of succession is not temporarily scrambled while they are grasped as expiring. In

other words, the order of points given by the intersections of the diagonal lines with the

vertical is also the order of the successively given now points. As a consequence, the

horizon of pastness associated with a now point is taken as reproducing the horizon of the

successively given moments which preceded this now point.

For Husserl, the vertical line also designates enduring time -- i.e., time

apprehended as duration. To see how this is so, let us examine a problem for which the

diagram is supposed to give a solution. Suppose I see a bird flying through the garden.

How have I been able to "see" this? What is required, with regard to my sense of time, to

grasp this flying or, for that matter, any motion at all? To grasp the flight as temporally

extended, I must grasp its moments as successive -- i.e., as occupying distinct temporal

positions. The successively grasped moments cannot, however, disappear from

consciousness the instant after their apprehension. To grasp the flight as a whole, I must

retain them in the present -- the present of the ongoing act of apprehension. Thus, what

is required is both the temporal distinction of these moments and their simultaneous

presence in the ongoing now. The vertical line designates the fulfillment of both

demands. Its points signify temporally distinct, successive moments insofar as to each is

attached a successively greater sense of "sinking down" or expiration. The points,

however, are all given along with the now (the topmost point of the vertical line). They,

thus, represent a retention, in the ongoing now, of the moments which were successively
 Notes
414

apprehended. For Husserl, then, we apprehend an extended temporal event, e.g., a

melody "not just because the extension of the melody is given point by point in an

extended perception, but also because the retentional consciousness, itself, still 'holds

fast' the expired tones in our apprehension and, hence, produces the ongoing unity of the

consciousness which is directed to the unitary temporal object, e.g., the melody" (HA X,

Boehm ed., p. 38). This "retentional consciousness" is made up of the retentions or short

term memories of the successively given content laden moments. The elements of this

consciousness are all co-present on the vertical, which means that this line can be said to

represent our retentional consciousness. Insofar as the latter is made up of our present

retentions of successively past events, its "unity" is that of an overlay of simultaneity on

succession.

Let us take a closer look at this solution. The diagonal lines designate, we said,

the sense of expiration, of "sinking down" into pastness. Now, this sense is that of

greater and greater removal of a past moment with its impressional content from the ever

new, momentarily actual now. This sense of constant removal, of removal proceeding at

a uniform rate, is that which first gives us the sense of a content laden moment as

occupying a definite position in the past. The moment, according to Husserl, is sensed as

sinking into pastness at just such a rate as to fix it in a definitely given order of past (or

expired) moments (See HA X, Boehm ed., p. 64).

The best way to see this is to analyze this "sinking down" along the diagonal line

into its horizontal and vertical components. With each new stretch of time, the retention

of a past moment is brought up to the present. As such, it remains on the vertical which

represents our present retentional consciousness. Yet, with each new stretch, the

retention also moves down a corresponding distance on this vertical line. The downward

moment, thus, corresponds to the movement of the vertical line to the right as it advances

to a new now point in the horizontal line of successive time. To say that a past
 Notes
415

impressional moment is experienced as expiring at a constant rate signifies, here, that the

downward movement of its retention has a fixed ratio to the horizontal advance of time.

This gives us our sense of this moment being fixed in the order of past time since this

downward movement is just such as to permit the present retention to keep the same

diagonal (or retentional) reference to the same point in the past.

U se Word 6.0 c o r la ter to

v iew Ma cin to sh pi ctu re .

One can also put this by saying that it is our sense of constant expiration which

constitutes for us the givenness of a content at a definite point in the past. Applied to a

multitude of contents, all expiring at the same rate, but distinct in their degrees of

pastness, this sense allows us to grasp in the now, the order of successive time.
Use Word 6.0c or later to

view Macintosh picture.

As we said, the parallelity of the diagonal lines indicates that this order is not scrambled

with the advance of time. This, however, requires that the increase of our sense of

expiration for each of these contents -- as represented by the downward movement of

their retentions -- must always be a constant function of the advance of time.

 Notes
416

What precisely is this sense of expiration? According to Husserl, it "has the

character of a continuous shading off (Abschattung)." As the perceptual process

continues, we can speak of a "continuous passage" from what is actually perceived to that

which is immediately and then mediately retained (HA X, Boehm ed., p. 29). Husserl

also describes this sense as a "constant continuum of retentions such that each later point

is a retention of the earlier" (Ibid.). In other words, we have an impression of a content

in the now. This impression is retained, then this immediate retention is itself retained,

and so on in a serial fashion. The result is "a continuous chain of retentions of

retentions" of the original content (Ibid, p. 199). Our last diagram may be taken as

applying this to a multitude of contents. The contents originally given along line AP are

retained on line A"P' which is itself retained on line A'''P''. Proceeding along one of the

diagonal lines, e.g., line A'''A, we can say that each retention retains all the retentions that

preceded it and, thus, retains the original content to which all the retentions on the line

are serially related. Each, however, also modifies this content. Each of the retentions

adds a sense of greater expiration or pastness to it. In other words, the sense of the

pastness of a content that a retention contains becomes, in a retention of this retention, a

sense of past pastness, i.e., a sense of greater pastness or further expiration.

If we ask what, strictly speaking, is this sense of pastness, two things can be said.

The first is that we experience its increase through the sinking down of our present

retentions. This sinking down is their self-modification -- i.e., their modification into

retentions of themselves. Thus, in our diagram, PA' sinks down to P'A'', and P'A'' is the

retention of the retentions along PA'. Our second point becomes apparent when we view

the diagonal lines as chains of retentions. Here, we have to say that the sense of pastness

is a relational sense. It is the sense of the serially ordered retentions -- i.e., retentions of

retentions -- which intervene between the present moment and that of an original

impression of a sense content.

 Notes
417

How far back can this retentional chain stretch? As indicated by the formula,

"short term memory," our actual retentional consciousness is always finite. If we wish to

recall a distant event, we must rely on the action of long term memory. We must re-

present the results of an earlier action of retaining departing moments. Having said this,

however, we must mention that the opposite view of retentional consciousness is implied

by Husserl's position. We can, in fact, argue that the retentional consciousness is infinite.

As we said, we grasp successive time through our retentions. Our retentional

consciousness gives us our sense of the present moment as a moment in time by locating

it as the leading edge of past time. From the perspective of our apprehension of time, an

earlier time must pertain to any moment which is grasped as being in time. Each

moment, if it is not to be anonymous, i.e., timeless, must be apprehended with its

locating "horizon of pastness." An already expired and, hence, retained moment is

necessarily grasped with its horizon of later time. This points to Husserl's "law" that "an

earlier and a later time pertain to any time" (HA X, Boehm ed., p. 10). Here, a second

"law" is easily derived. If every moment, located in the fixed order of time, must have

its horizon of pastness, then we have to say that "the fixed temporal order is an infinite

two-dimensional series" (Ibid.). The horizon of pastness accompanying each moment

assures us that no moment is the first. Thus, the fixed temporal order gasped by retention

must be "infinite" in the sense of having no beginning. This infinity is, in fact, a function

of the two-dimensionality of experienced time. A one-dimensional temporal series

would simply be the successively given time which is designated by the horizontal line of

the time diagram (line AE in our last figure). As retained, the horizon of pastness

accompanying each moment allows us to draw a vertical line beneath each point of the

horizontal. These vertical lines designate the second, retentional dimension of

experienced time. Since this second dimension is what first allows us to posit successive
 Notes
418

time and since it does not allow us to posit its beginning, we have the infinity of time's

first dimension.

This infinity carries over to the retentional consciousness itself. As Husserl

expresses this, "The diagram takes no notice of the limitation of the temporal field. It

does not assign an end to the retentions and ideally a consciousness is, indeed, possible in

which everything is retentionally present" (HA X, Boehm ed., p. 31, fn. 1). In other

words, if we can imagine no end to past time, then the "horizon of pastness," which

consists of the retentions of such time, also has no end. Thus, the vertical line, which

designates this retentional consciousness, could "ideally" be drawn infinitely downward.

A later section will discuss the nature of this all embracing consciousness. For the

present, we stress that although it is implied by an individual's retentional consciousness,

the latter is always finite. The individual's grasp of time, thus, implies a temporal

horizon which surpasses his actual apprehension.

§3. Temporal Dependence as Underlying Kant's Conditions of Cognition

According to our last section, the sense of expiration is that of a serially ordered,

constant process. The nature of this process can best be seen by considering in somewhat

greater detail what cognition requires of our sense of time. These requirements were first

outlined by Kant in his Critique of Pure Reason. On this point, Kant seems to have

directly influenced Husserl. The latter's copy of the Critique shows the signs of a

frequent reading. In particular, the passages discussing these requirements are heavily

underlined in pencil and ink.2

Two of these requirements have already been mentioned by us. We can,

however, profitably review them by following Kant's formulations. The first involves

the fact that the apprehension of a temporally extended object involves a "multiplicity" of

temporally distinct impressions. Such an apprehension, as Kant writes, would be

 Notes
419

impossible "if the mind did not distinguish time in the succession of impressions

following one another" ("Kritique d. r. V.," A 99; Kant's ges. Schriften, IV, 77). The

impressions must be given distinct temporal positions. They must, we can say, be

inserted into definite, unchanging positions in objective, successively given time. The

second condition is that of reproduction. As Kant says,, "... if I were to lose from my

thought the preceding impressions ... and not reproduce them when I advance to those

which follow, a complete presentation would never arise ..." (Ibid., A 102; IV, 79). The

requirement, then, is that of making co-present the impressions which I must distinguish

according to successive temporal positions. For Husserl, the retentional process satisfies

both requirements by retaining (or reproducing), at each temporal position, the content

which was retained in the previous position. Thus, at every moment of my apprehension,

the past is brought up to the present. In the series of such moments, the past is serially

retained. Yet, these co-present retentions continue to be temporally distinguished. This

follows when we grant that the sense of their distinction -- of greater or less pastness -- is

a relational one: a sense of a retention being related to its original impression through

the intervening retentions of retentions.

This admission allows us to meet a third requirement for cognition. Retention

can fulfill its function of bringing the past up to the present only if we are capable of

recognizing that the retained content is the same as the content originally given in the

past. In Kant's words, "Without the consciousness that what we think is, in fact, the same

was what we thought a moment before, all reproduction in the series of presentations

would be useless" (Ibid., A 103; IV, 79). In other words, without this consciousness, the

reproduced would appear as something new. Rententions would not be temporally

distinguished from the impressions which we are presently experiencing. Now, the

consciousness that a retention is not a new presentation is a consciousness that what it

retains -- i.e., its content -- is something past. This consciousness is guaranteed if we

 Notes
420

grant that a retention presents what it retains through a series of retentions and grant as

well that a consciousness of this series is, in fact, that of the pastness of the retained.

The precise nature of this consciousness of pastness can be elicited by

contrasting the independence of a new presentation with the dependence of a retention.

The former does not exhibit a dependence on what is not presently given, the latter does.

Husserl writes that a retention, in itself, "is a momentary consciousness of an expired

phase and also a basis for the retentional consciousness of the next phase" -- i.e., a basis

for a retention of this retention (HA X, Boehm ed., p. 118). This means that a retention

cannot be given unless what it retains is first given, the latter being the retention that

serves as its basis. The same holds for each of the members of the retentional chain.

Together, they form a chain of dependencies. The chain is anchored in its first member,

which is here understood as an originally given presentation.

How does the attachment of this chain to the presentation exhibit the latter's

pastness? The answer takes us to the origin of time's intentionality. We are aware of a

retention's dependence by virtue of its functioning as a sign -- i.e., by its pointing beyond

itself. The dependence of its being in the now upon what is not now is exhibited by its

reference. It refers beyond itself, in its present givenness, to that upon which it is

immediately and, then, mediately dependent. Reference to something else is, however,

the primitive form of intentionality. We, thus, have two possible descriptions of the

retentional chain, the first being the inner of which the second is the outer manifestation.

Since the members of the chain are all dependent, the chain can be described as a

"continuity of constant changes ... inseparable into phases and points of the continuity

that could exist for themselves" (HA X, Boehm ed., p. 27). Since dependence, or

incapability of existing for oneself, shows itself in intentionality, the chain can also be

described as possessing a "diagonal intentionality" (Querintentionalität), one proceeding

 Notes
421

back from the present retention to the independently given "primary datum" (Ibid., p.

81).

The phenomenological distinction between a new presentation and a retention

should now be apparent. The former presents its content immediately without any

further temporal reference. As for the latter, it presents what it retains through a serially

structured intentionality. In other words, it presents it through a continuous chain of

retentions of retentions, each of which is understood as retaining all the previous

members of the chain. Now, since each of the members, by virtue of its dependence, is

intentionally "of" the previous members of the chain, none of them, as a retention, can

claim an independence or newness. Thus, each member presents itself as a non-new or

past moment. With this, we can see how each adds the modification of pastness to what

it retains. To grasp an originally given content through a series of retentions, each of

which presents itself as a past moment, is to grasp it through a stretch of past time.

Temporally speaking, the content's appearance is also the appearance of the pastness

through which it is given. This follows since we cannot retain this content without also

retaining the pastness which is presented by each of the retentions of the content. Thus,

the content is presented as an impression which is at a temporal remove from our present

act of retention -- i.e., our retention of all the retentions which are dependent on the

content's original givenness. We can also say that the increase of this chain of retentions

involves the increase in our sense of the pastness of the impressional content since each

additional member of the chain adds the modification of not-newness or further pastness

to it.

The crucial point in this analysis is that of the serially structured dependence of

the members of the retentional chain. Each retention, in its now, is dependent on a

retention which, relative to it, is not now. It is this dependence of the now of each

retention on the relative not-nows of what precedes it which must be assumed if we are to
 Notes
422

explain how the resulting diagonal intentionality involves a sense of pastness, i.e., a sense

of the givenness which is no longer now. Otherwise put: dependence on the not-now

manifests itself in an intentionality which presents this not-now. This intentionality

proceeds along the retentional chain, whose members are dependent, each upon the next,

until it ultimately results in a presentation of the impressional content in its pastness. We

must, a fortiori, also assume this dependence to explain our apprehension of successively

given time. Such time corresponds to the increasing sense of the pastness of a content as

from moment to moment we successively move from retention to retention of this

content. The simultaneous apprehension of a multitude of successively given moments,

all expiring at the same rate, arises from our retentional chains being linked to a

multitude of contents. The different lengths of these chains give us our sense of the

different degrees of pastness pertaining to such moments.

There is a further necessity for the possibility of cognition. Beyond the

recognition that the retained impressions are the same as the originally given ones, we

must, according to Kant, have the recognition that the retained "form a whole." The

multiplicity of contents that we retain in the now must be viewed as united "into a

presentation" ("Kritik d. r. V.," A 103; ed. cit., IV, 79). This requires, we can say, the

same inseparable unity in the vertical direction as we uncovered in the diagonal. As we

have seen, each moment of the diagonally represented retentional chain is "of" a previous

moment in this chain because it cannot exist or be conceived without the latter. To

repeat Husserl's remarks: "We know with regard to the phenomenon of expiration that it

is a continuity of constant changes, that it forms an inseparable unity, inseparable into

temporal stretches that could exist for themselves and inseparable into phases and into

points of the continuity that could exist for themselves." Now, the diagonal lines of

retentions end, at every moment, in a vertical line, one which represents the presence of

the retained at that moment. With this, we can say that the same inseparability exists in
 Notes
423

the vertical direction. No single retention of the vertical line can be grasped in isolation

from the later members of this line. This follows because the present retention's

reference to a past moment occurs serially through all the moments separating it from

this past instant. Its reference, thus, demands the moments which followed this past

instant. These moments, however, are themselves retained on the vertical. Accordingly

each moment of the vertical line, by virtue of the fact that it has sunk down and is

grasped as such, implies these later moments of time. Its having sunk down is, we can

say, a consequence of the presence on the vertical of those retained moments which

separate it from the topmost, now-point of the vertical.

Here, of course, the diagram simply represents the fact that the sense of the

pastness of what we retain demands a sense of the time which followed it. As Husserl

puts this: "... every past indicates a future ..." (Ms. E III 9, p. 19, 1929). It "has its

horizon of futurity which has already fulfilled itself ..." (Ms. C 17, Sept. 22, 1931; HA

XV, Kern ed., p. 344). Because each of the moments of this already fulfilled horizon are

retained on the vertical, each of our present retentions points beyond itself. Each has a

vertical reference to our retentions of later moments. The retention of what has been,

thus, implies the "protention" -- or forward reference -- to what comes later.

U se Wo rd 6.0c or la ter to

v i ew Ma ci n to sh p i ctu re .

As before, the root of this protentional reference -- or, in Husserl's words,

"vertical intentionality" (Quersintentionalität) -- is simply dependence. As we said, a

 Notes
424

dependence on the not-now manifests itself in an intentionality which presents this not

now. The "not-now," here, is not the past, but rather the future. This different sense of

the not-now follows from the fact that vertical intentionality rests on the diagonal

intentionality in which the not-now does have the sense of pastness. In the above

diagram, the retentions of later moments (along line A''B') are connected to these

moments (along line AB) by decreasing retentional chains. Each of these chains, by

virtue of its diagonal intentionality, presents a not-now in its pastness. Yet since the

chains decrease as we ascend the vertical, these retained moments along A''B' exhibit a

decreasing sense of pastness. Accordingly, a dependence on these later retentions is a

dependence on what is relatively future. Concretely, this means that my grasp of a

retained impression includes a grasp of what followed it. The intentionality implicit in

its dependence on the retentions which follow it -- the retentions along A''B' -- unites its

apprehension with a grasp of its already fulfilled horizon of futurity. Thus, the retained

"form a whole" in my apprehension. Their contents, in Kant's words, are united "into a

presentation."

To see how this presentation results in the givenness of an enduring object, we

must turn to a further requirement for cognition. Husserl writes that through the vertical

intentionality "immanent time constitutes itself. This an objective time, a genuine time in

which there is duration and the change of what endures" (HA X, Boehm ed., p. 83). He

adds, in an appendix, "Duration is the form of something that endures, the form of an

enduring being, of something identical in the temporal succession that functions as its

duration" (Ibid., p. 113, italics added). Kant makes the same point when he calls the

synthesis which allows us to recognize an enduring object a "synthesis of recognition in a

concept" ("Kritik d. r. V., A 103; ed. cit., III, 79). A concept is a one in many. Thus, we

must be able to recognize identical characteristics within the multitude of our distinct

impressions in order to say that our impressions are of something identical -- are
 Notes
425

impressions of an appearing object with definite qualities. The same point holds when

we abstractly consider duration itself. The moments are recognized as moments of a

duration when they exhibit an identical character. In considering duration per se, i.e., in

considering time as abstracted from content, we are, of course, performing the first

temporal reduction (See above, ). This reduction reveals that the moments of

time are not per se tied to particular contents. As such, it shows that the identical

character we are seeking is the quality of the moments' being, one and all, empty

containers for possible contents.

How does this recognition of identity in multiplicity actually occur? As we have

seen, the temporal process exhibits a twofold structure of dependence. Dependence in

the diagonal direction results in impressional moments' being retained with distinct

temporal referents. In the vertical direction, its result is that our retentions of such

moments are united with one another in the ongoing present. In Husserl's words, the

intentionality which arises from this dependence "is constitutive of the unity of these

primary memories within the flux" (HA X, Boehm ed., p. 80). As a consequence, our

presently held retentions have a twofold reference. Each is distinct insofar as it

intentionally refers to a distinct moment in the past. Each, however, is unified with a

portion of the retentions along the vertical insofar as the pastness of what it retains

implies later moments which are themselves retained. We, thus, have a situation where

we are required to think the retentions along the vertical as temporally distinct in their

reference to past impressions and, yet, as forming a continuous whole -- i.e., as incapable

of "existing for themselves."3 This second condition points to the required element of

unity. To grasp our presently held retentions as a whole is to grasp them in their

coincidence. It also is to grasp them such that their similar qualities reenforce one

another. This present coincidence and consequent reenforcement of an element of

quality is the appearing of one in many.4

 Notes
426

When, for example, we take an object and, in turning it, continually view its

features, the same contents appear again and again. The object repeats itself as it again

shows the sides which we earlier viewed. According to Husserl, the object is

experienced as the same -- i.e., as a one in many -- by virtue of the coincidence and

reenforcement of these recurring contents of our experience. Each of the contents is

retained in the ongoing present. This means that each is placed in a "unity of

coincidence" with the other retained contents. This coincidence does not affect their

temporal references; each content remains, in its reference, something originally

experienced at a given point in successive time. The coincidence, however, does

generate the re-enforcement of qualities that are the same. Like a series of overlapping

transparencies, the coincidence of what we retain results in the reenforced appearance of

what is the same and, to a lesser degree, of what is similar. Husserl writes in this regard:

... "lines of likeness" run from one [retained content] to another and, in and, in the case of
similarity, "lines of similarity." We have, here, a certain mutual relatedness
(Aufeinanderbezogneheit) which is not constituted in a reflective act of drawing
relations, a relatedness which, prior to all "comparison" and "thinking," stands as a
presupposition for the intuitions of likeness and difference (HA X, 44).

This "mutual relatedness" follows upon the union of the retentions of like contents, i.e.,

upon the coincidence with results from their protentionally directed, temporal

dependence. In the late manuscripts, Husserl uses the term "merging" (Verschmelzung)

to describe the situation. He writes: "The whole of the hyletic material is united in

passive temporalization -- even what is heterogeneous. Here, however, every thing

harmonious is united in the particular mode of merging" (Ms. E III 9, p. 21, 1929). In

other words, every thing retained is brought together in the "concrete now" -- the vertical

of the time diagram. But, in this, there is a particular coming together. We have
 Notes
427

"through similarity, a homogeneous merging" (Ms. C 15, p. 1, 1931). This is "a

continuous merging according to similarities" (Ibid., p. 5). By virtue of this, the merged

qualities "stand out." They reenforce each other and, hence, distinguish themselves from

the heterogeoneous qualities whose union does not result in their merging (See Ms. C 13

I, pp. 10 ff, Jan. 1934).

This merging gives us the object's "noematic nucleus" -- i.e., the connected,

relatively stable features which allow us to recognize the object in its appearances. The

same point can be made about the duration of the object's appearing. Here, as we

indicated, the similar quality which is brought into coincidence is each moment's

character of being an empty container for some possible content. The similarity of

moments, insofar as they are not inherently tied to particular contents, results in their

own merging. In Husserl's words, "All of the moments in the streaming, which pertain to

the different, [successively] simultaneous local data of the impressions, are completely

alike and, as such, merge ..." (Ms. C 7 II, p. 9, June 1932). With this, we have the unity

of the duration which corresponds to the unity formed by the merging of the object's

sensuous contents. As Husserl writes, in discussing our grasp of a melody:

... primarily merging, the temporalizations unite together and thereby produce a
unity of a temporalization for all the times [of particular tonal imprssions -- i.e.,
for] their temporalizations and times. Here, however, the homogeneity of the
tones plays its part. The unities [of the retained tonal impressions] merge
according to their contents and the times [of such impressions] merge according
to the constant, homogeneous form which arises from the homogeneous
temporalization (Ms. C 15, p. 5, 1931).

In both cases, the merging results in the Kantian "synthesis of recognition in a concept"

-- i.e., in the apprehension of a one in many. The contents we experience become

 Notes
428

contents of some object by virtue of the merging of the qualitative elements, a merging

which produces each of the object's features. For the same reason the moments bearing

these contents become moments of the object's duration. Each moment, in its ability to

bear every possible content, is of the duration which exhibits all the object's contents.

Enduring, of course, is enduring through successive time; a duration is one time

made up of a multiplicity of successively given moments. Thus, in the apprehension of a

duration, the retained impressional moments must not, in their merging, lose their distinct

temporal referents. This condition is satisfied by the fact that the vertical intentionality,

which results in this merging, cannot occur without the occurrence of the separate,

diagonal intentionality. The latter, as we recall, is what gives our retained impressions

their sense of being more or less past and, thus, permits the vertical intentionality which

proceeds through our retentions from the past to what is relatively future.

Summing up, we can say that this section's analyses have an overriding theme:

cognition requires the dependence of the moment. Dependence along the retentional

chains gives us the diagonal intentionality of each of our retained impressions. Each is

intentionally "of" an originally given past impression. Dependence in the vertical

direction gives us the corresponding vertical intentionality. Here, each retention is not

just "of" the subsequent retention of a later impression. It is actually "of" the object

which appears through the merging of our retained impressions.5 This "ofness" includes

the object in its present, momentary givenness since dependence in the vertical direction

proceeds through each retention of a later moment until it reaches the presently given

impresional moment. Thus, without the twofold dependence of retained impressional

moments, we would not have the consciousness of either succession or duration -- and,

hence, would not be able to grasp an object as enduring through successive time, i.e., as

enduring up to the present moment.

 Notes
429

§4. The Subjective Reading of the Time Diagram

An important conclusion is implicit in the above. This is that perceptual

experience and its object are co-constituted. As Husserl puts this: "In the same

impressional consciousness in which the perception is constituted, precisely through this

[process], the perceived object is also constituted" (HA X, Boehm ed., p. 91). In other

words, "... necesarily the one is constituted with the other" (Ibid., p. 92). This

constitution does not imply that experience and object are the same. They have, as we

earlier noted, different manners of appearing. Thus, if our object is a spatial-temporal

thing, it can show itself perspectivally. Its enduring involves change as it shows itself

first from one side and then from another. This is not the case with an experience of the

thing. In Husserl's words, "An experience does not, like a thing, show itself

perspectivally" (Ideen I, Biemel ed., p. 97).

This co-constitution of experience and object in their different manners of

appearing results, for Husserl, from the twofold intentionality of the temporal process.

By virtue of the diagonal intentionality proceeding from our present retentions, there is

constituted our sense of a phase of experience as something extended along a given

stretch of successive time. This phase may embrace the perspectival appearing of some

object. The phase, however, does not change -- i.e., appear perspecivally -- as it is

constantly retained as one and the same stretch of past experience. We can also express

this by saying that the retentional process does not exhibit the change of perceptual

contents which would be required for the phase to perspectivally appear the way a thing

does. As Husserl writes of the flux of retentions of retentions: "In principle, no phase of

the flux can be broadened out into a continuous successeion, i.e., the flux cannot be

thought of as so transformed that the phase extends itself into an identity with itself" (HA

X, Boehm ed., p. 74). The claim, here, is that, when we limit ourselves to pursuing the

diagonal intentionality of our retentions, we do not have the phenomenon of self-identity

 Notes
430

manifesting itself through a succession of contents, a phenomenon that does characterize

the perspectival appearing of a thing. Because of this, as Husserl concludes: "There is,

thus, lacking here every object that changes; and, insofar as 'something' goes on in every

process, there is no question here of a process. There is nothing changing and, therefore,

there can be no talk of something enduring" (Ibid.). To grasp this enduring, we must

turn to the intentionality which proceeds in the vertical direction. The latter is

constitutive of the object as an identity which persists through a multitude of changes.

Behind these changes is a constant adding to the retentions which form the ongoing

now's horizon of pastness. The intentionality unifying our present retentions is

constantly merging them wtih the retentions we have "just now" acquired from the

ongoing perceptual process. Thus, the identity generated by this merging is, by virtue of

the addition of constantly new contents, an identity which persists through the changing

contents of our experience.

Once we see experience and object as resulting from the diagonal and vertical

intentionalities of our retentions, their co-constitution follows as a matter of course. It

follows because, as Husserl writes, these two intentionalities are "like sides of one and

the same thing." They are distinct; yet they are "intentionalities which promote one

another and are interwoven in the single, unique flux of consciousness" (HA X, Boehm

ed., p. 83). Thus, the diagonal intentionality, which gives us our sense of successive

time, is interwoven with the vertical intentionality which proceeds from the retention of

an earlier moment to that of a later. In the time diagram, the vertical line is simply the

advancing front of the retentional chains. The process of this advance, which results in

the retention of a phase of experience, also results in the present retentions forming the

vertical. The advance, thus, continuously gives rise to the vertically directed

intentionality which yields the experienced object.

 Notes
431

A further consequence of the interweaving of the two intentionalities was

mentioned in our last section. It is the constitution of the intentional relation between

experience and object. This relation is that of multiplicity to unity. An experience is

"of" an object because its content is one of many similar contents whose merging forms a

particular feature of the object -- e.g., its color. It is because of this that we say that the

object exhibits itself in the multiplicity of our experiences, each experience pointing to

what the object is in one of its particular features.

Another result of the "twofold intentionality of our retentions" concerns

consciousness itself. Speaking of this dual intentionality, Husserl writes that "the flux of

consciousness constitutes itself as a unity ..." (HA X, Boehm ed., p. 80). He adds, with

regard to the temporality implicit in the references of our retentions, "This pre-

phenomenal, pre-immanent temporality intentionally constitutes itself as the form of time

constituting consciousness [and intentionally constitutes itself] in this consciousness

itself' (Ibid., p. 82). The point of these remarks is that, with the constitution of

experience and object and the intentionality linking them, we have the constitution of

consciousness itself as a distinct temporal form. In other words, before the constitution

of successive and enduring time, we cannot speak of the unity of consciousness. Such a

unity embraces experience in its relation to the appearing object; but without the

intentionalities which arise from our present retentions, this relation does not obtain. We

can put the same point slightly differently by saying that without the constitution of

successive and enduring time, there is no central acting ego. Before such constitution,

the temporal field which allows the ego to appear as a center does not obtain. Because of

this, there is no "acting" in the sense of the ego's allowing its acts to temporally depart

from itself. This means that the constitution of time cannot be taken as following from

the action of an already given ego; it is, as we have stressed, a "passive" constitution.
 Notes
432

With this, Husserl and Kant come to the parting of their philosophical ways. For

Kant, the temporal requirements for cognition give the conditions for the appearing of

the subject. The acting subject, which constitutes its appearance by satisfying these

conditions in its temporal constitution, does not, itself, appear. Thus, for Kant, the "inner

sense" by which we grasp our temporal unity presents us "only as we appear to ourselves,

not as we are in ourselves" (Kritik d. r. V., B 152-53; ed. cit., III, 120). "In ourselves" --

i.e., inherently -- we act to posit experiences in successive time, to reproduce in the

present the experiences which have successively departed, and to synthesize what we

reproduce into the unity of a persisting object. Yet such action springs from our non-

appearing being, i.e., our being as a "nouminal," non-temporal actor. We reverse this

position when we assert that our being "as genuine egos, as centers of acts in relation to a

surrounding world" is a being which results from temporal constitution. At this point,

the arising of the process of temporal constitution is our own arising or "awakening" as

active egological centers.

To uncover the ground of this process, we must reverse our reading of the time

diagram. Up to now, we have given an objective reading of the diagram. We have

assumed that the "horizon of pastness" attached to the now point is the result of our

retaining successively given impressional moments. Thus, we began with the assumption

of successively given time and attempted to analyze how, through the process of its

retention, we acquire our sense of successive time. Husserl, however, also gives a

subjective reading of the diagram. Here, he assumes as given only what is immediately

present in the "concrete," ongoing now. In such a now, we find the data along the

vertical -- i.e., the co-present retentions which, per se, are not in successive time. As for

the diagonal lines designating the chains of retentions of retentions, we are not

immediately given the extension of these lines through successive time. In other words,

the drawing of these lines is considered the result of an interpretation based upon our
 Notes
433

immediately given retentions. So is the drawing of the horizontal line which designates

"the series of now points" in successive time. Thus, in this second, subjective reading,

such now points (or impressional moments) are not taken as immediately given. They

are rather considered as constituted from the data on the vertical.

This shift in the reading of the diagram may be put in terms of the meaning

Husserl gives to the term "retentional modifications." Such modifications are not seen as

modifications of a content which is already given in the fixed order of successive time.

There are rather modifications which fix (or insert) this content in a temporal order

which they, themselves, constitute. In Husserl's words,

We believe, accordingly, that by virtue of the constancy of the retentional modifications

(Abwandulungen) and the circumstance that they are constantly retentions of the

constantly preceding ones, there is constituted in the flux of consciousness the unity of

the flux itself as a one dimensional quasi-temporal order (HA X,82, italics added).

This dimension, which is represented by the horizontal line, is "quasi-temporal" since it

does not include time's second dimension, that of enduring or persistence in time. It is

simply the fixed order of successively given, content laden moments. As we mentioned

above, we grasp this order because the contents we experience collectively expire or sink

into pastness at the same rate. When we see this "sinking own" as constituted by the

process of retentional modification, we are asserting the constitution of this "one

dimensional quasi-temporal order."

We can put this in terms of the first thing we confront in a subjective reading of

the time diagram. This is the constant modification of the contents which are given in

the vertically represented horizon of pastness. The modification is constant; and it can be

diagramatically represented by the contents moving downward on a lengthening vertical

 Notes
434

line as new retentions are constantly added to what we presently retain. Husserl calls our

present retentions "a multitude of modified primary contents which are characterized as

retentional modifications of primary contents in their now character." He claims that by

virtue of the process of their retentional modification, "these primary contents are carriers

of primary interpretations, interpretations which in their flowing connectedness constitute

the temporal unity of the immanent content in its sinking back into apstness. 'Contents,'

in the case of perceptual appearances, are just such wholes of appearances that are

constituted as temporal unities" (HA X, Boehm ed., p. 92, italics added). The "primary

interpretation" which is given to a content by its retentional modification is, of course, an

interpretation of its degree of pastness. Diagramatically speaking, this interpretation is

given by the distance along the vertical which separates this content from the momentary

now or topmost point of the vertical. The "retentional modification," which forms the

basis for this interpretation, is diagramatically represented by the downward movement

of the content on the vertical. It is , in other words, represented by the modification

which changes the content's place along the vertical.

The same view of temporal constitution appears in the late manuscripts. They

invite us to consider the downward motion of the vertical line as representing the phases

of a content as it "appears in the now point, is now, is immediately modified into the just

past and, in the modification of a [further] just pastness of this just past, etc., is [a

content] fixed as the same, as the same in the changes of its temporal modalities ..." In

other words, "it is precisely through this process [of retentional modification] that it is

constituted as the same, as an identical point in the fixed form of the primal now and the

just past, etc." When we apply this to a multitude of contents, all undergoing the same

modification, we see that "there is constituted an identical form with identical temporal

positions as phases of this form and as identical 'concrete' unities ..." (Ms. C 2 I, p. 17,

Aug. 1930; see also Ms. D 15, p. 1, Nov. 1932). The claim of the above is that the
 Notes
435

process which we took to be that of the retention of an already given moment is, in fact a

process constituting this moment. It constitutes it as an "identical, immanent temporal

position" in departing time (Ms. C III 3, pp. 26-27, March 1931). Such a constitution is,

then, the insertion of a content into what comes to be constituted as the fixed order of

such time. It is its constitution as a content which is impressionally given at a particular

moment in such time. Because of this, Husserl can affirm: "All impressions, the primary

contents as well as the experiences which are 'consciousness of' [some object] constitute

themselves in primary consciousness" (HA X, Boehm ed., p. 89). In other words, quite

independently of whether the vertical intentionality merges our contents so as to allow

them to be taken as experiences of some object, the retentional process still constitutes

them as impressions -- i.e., as "data" which we interpret as successively "given" to us.

In a certain sense, this position is similar to Kant's. For Kant, the insertion of a

content into a definite temporal position is also the result of time constitution. Such

constitution involves the successive "reproduction" of a content, a reproduction which

allows it to be grasped as the same content with the same departing temporal reference.

Ultimately, of course, this constitution is traced to the functioning of a timeless subject.

Yet, even here, Husserl's position does not explicitly differ from Kant's. Thus, given his

distinction between the constituting and the constituted, Husserl must say, "The

phenomena which constitute time are objectivities which are evidently different in

principle from those which are constituted in time" (HA X, Boehm ed., pp. 74-5). The

predicates which are applicable to the latter -- such as having a definite temporal position

or enduring through a succession of such positions -- "cannot be sensibly applied" to the

constituting phenomena (Ibid.). Thus, our present retentions are not per se in time. Only

that which is posited out of a retention's ongoing modification -- i.e., the content in its

self-identical temporal position -- is considered to be given at a definite time.

Accordingly, if we regard consciousness as composed of the data on the vertical, it seems

 Notes
436

that "we cannot speak of a time of the ultimately constituting consciousness" (Ibid., p.

78).

Yet even this interpretation of consciousenss does not fully capture the

timelessness which Husserl feels compelled to ascribe to it. He writes in an appendix:

"subjective time constitutes itself in an absolutely timeless consciousness which is not an

object" (Ibid., 112 italics added). "Consciousness," here, cannot refer to the data on the

vertical. Although, as constantly now, they are not in time, yet they are constantly

undergoing retentional modifications. As such, they are not absolutely timeless. In other

words, to reach the aboslutely timeless, we must abstract from the downward movement

of the vertical. Behind this movement is the successive addition of new retentions, each

new retention occasioning the "sinking down" of the retentions which preceded it. Thus,

to speak of what is absolutely timeless, we must abstract from this addition and the

multiplicity it implies.

Is this the nouminal ego which is posited by Kant as the timeless source of

temporal constitution? Kant does say that the ego is a "throughgoing identity" (Kritique

d. r. V., A 116; ed. cit., IV, 87). Its unity is such that when we attempt to represent it,

"nothing multiple is given" (Ibid., B 135; III, 110, italics added). Yet, as already

indicated, this explicit agreement conceals a disagreement. For Kant, temporalization is

a function of an individual actor. The ego's nouminal unity is the "transcendental

ground" of the fact that its temporal constitution satisfies the requirements of cognition.

It is, thus, a ground of its own appearing as a knowable presence. For Husserl, however,

there is no hidden actor behind the appearing ego. The individual actor is the appearing

ego. This means that the "absolutely timeless" source of temporalization is prior to both,

but not individually prior. It is the pre-individual condition for the constitution of every

individual unity, including that of the acting subject (See above, ).

 Notes
437

Another section will be required to get at the ground of the temporal process and,

hence, at the ground of our own arising as appearing, acting egos. For the present, we

note that Husserl's reference to an "absolutely timeless" source of this process points

beyond the subjective reading of the time diagram. In regarding the vertical of this

diagram, we have only reached the end of the first stage of the temporal reduction. We

can conclude by recalling this stage and relating it to the subjective reading. In this way,

we can gain an insight into how the diagram represents the "living present" which is

uncovered by this stage.

Before I perform the reduction, my constant nowness appears, as we said, to be a

point of transit for the moments of successive time. Time seems to stream towards me

from the future and to depart into pastness. After I perform its first stage, I limit myself

to considering only my immediate self-presence. With this, the passing through appears

as a "welling up" in my "living present" of the moments which, before the reduction, I

assumed were already given -- i.e., as already extended through objective time (See

above, ). To relate this to the time diagram, we have to note that the downward

movement of its vertical represents what Husserl later calls the "stationary streaming"of

the living present. As Husserl writes of this present, "It contains within this streaming

the continuity of the intentional modifications of the momentary, primal mode: now"

(Ms. C 7I, p. 5, June - July, 1932). Such modifications are this now's retentional

modifications. The latter constitute distinct temporal positions. Thus, the welling up of

"moments" from my living present is, as constitutive of objective time, actually a welling

up of retentions. In Husserl's words, "As [pertaining to my] constant present, the

functioning [of temporalization] is constantly a primal functioning, but it is also a

constant letting loose (Aus-sich-entlassen) of retentions ..." (Ms. A V 5, pp. 4-5, Jan.

1933). Thus, the functioning is stationary insofar as the retentions on the vertical, i.e.,

the retentions which have been "let loose" (or added) from its topmost now-point, are all
 Notes
438

constantly now.6 Yet it is also a streaming functioning since, by virtue of this letting

loose, the retentions stream, i.e., constantly move downward on the vertical.

As we earlier noted, this downward movement is just such as to have a retained

impression keep its identical reference to one and the same position in the past (See

above, ). In a subjective reading of the time diagram, we can say that this

downward movement is what constitutes this position in its streaming into further

pastness.

Use Wo rd 6.0c or later to

view Macint os h picture.

As the retained impression sinks down, it undergoes a further retentional modification.

Its tie to its increasing line of diagonal reference indicates that it is modified into a

retention of the very retention it "just now" was. The diagonal lines are drawn to

designate this relation of retention of retention. Yet, as Husserl remarks, such retentions

"are included in one another" (Ms. C 17; Sept. 21-22, 1931; HA XV, Kern ed., p. 346).

This means that all the members of a retentional chain are included in the retention which

is present on the vertical. The diagonal line is simply a diagramatic representation of the

contents of the present retention. Thus, it is from the latter that an impression's temporal

position is constituted. When we depict the present retention as moving downward on

the vertical, we are representing its constitution of this position in its flowing into

pastness. We are also diagramatically depicting the constant modification which makes

every retention continuously include further retentions of itself.

 Notes
439

This view, as we said, is that which is afforded by the end of the first stage of the

reduction. The second stage leaves us with the nunc stans. It leaves us with the timeless

now which is stripped of all relation to temporality. Before we reach this final stage, we

can still speak of a moment in time as the appearance, the objective expression, of the

nunc stans. We can also say that the nunc stan's appearance as a moment in time is one

with its departure from this appearance. This follows because, as Husserl writes, "When

we return to the primal now," we find that it "has modified itself and is modifying itself

in the modes: the retentional and the protentional ..." (Ms. C 7 I, p. 8; June-July, 1932).

In other words, its objective appearance is one with its retentional modification, a

modification which posits it as a moment in time. This is why this now's temporalization

is "a constant letting loose of retentions." Such letting loose is, in fact, the now's

constant self-modification. The retentions which express this modification are the

retentions of itself as particular temporal positions. Its successive departure from these

positions follows from the fact that, in remaining constantly now, it distinguishes itself

from its retentional modifications -- the very modifications which result in the increasing

pastness of its temporal appearances. Here, of course, it can also be said to have a

protentional modification. As constantly now, it is always appearing as what, with the

further letting loose of retentions, will come to be considered as the next now.

How does this relate to the final stage of the temporal reduction? Before we

reach this stage, the letting loose of retentions appears as the engine of the temporal

process. To justify the claim that there is an "absolutely timeless" origin of time, we

must see how this engine -- this letting loose of retentions -- is itself implicit in the

timeless, absolutely stationary now.

§5. The Teleological Structure of Temporal Constitution

 Notes
440

What does it mean to speak of a timeless ground of a process? If we take a

process, not as a series of random events, but as directed towards a fixed goal, then this

goal appears as its timeless element. As Aristotle first observed, the goal is that towards

which the process advances. As fixed, it is the one thing in the process that does not

progress (See Physics, 198 b, 1-3). Thus, to speak of a process's timeless element as its

ground or cause is to understand this as its goal -- i.e., as its "final cause." It is to

implicitly identify the goal and the ground and, hence, to see the process as teleological.

Now, the goal of the temporal process is nothing less than time itself -- time as the

totality of its moments. When we take this process as having a timeless ground, we must

see this goal as its ground, which means that we must take temporalization as a

teleological process. But, how can we understand time itself as such a ground? How can

we identify the totality of time with the "timeless now" -- the now that is revealed by the

last stage of the reduction?

To answer these questions, let us first return to the stance of our third section.

This section began by assuming the existence of the moments of successive time. It

viewed the temporal process in terms of its results -- i.e., in terms of its goal having, in

part, already been accomplished. Its question was: how do we grasp already

accomplished time? Its answer was to point to the dependence of the moment, seeing

such dependence as the origin of time's intentionalities. As we said, intentionality, in its

primitive root, is the reference of one thing to another. A moment refers to the moments

surrounding it because it is dependent -- i.e., is "nothing for itself" without such

moments. Thus, its dependence on the moments preceding it gives rise to a diagonal

intentionality presenting these moments. This presents them as past -- i.e., as something

retained as opposed to something impressionally given. Such dependence, then, was

considered as responsible for the retentional process itself. It is what makes the past

moment intentionally present in the form of a retention. Similarly, the dependence of the
 Notes
441

moment on the moments following it was taken as yielding a corresponding vertical

intentionality. Here, the "protentional" reference of past moments signified that every

apprehension of a retained event includes a grasp of what followed it.

The reason why we mention this is that it provides one of the three conditions

which must be met to answer our initial question. To see the totality of time as the

ground of the temporal process, we must, first of all, see it as the ground of every

moment of time. It must ground it as "nothing for itself," which means that it must

ground it as dependent on all the other moments of time. The second condition requires

that we see dependence as the origin of time's intentionalities and, hence, as the origin of

the retentional process. This is the insight provided by the above. As for our third

condition, this was given by our last section. Taking up its stance, we must see the

intentionalities which proceed from the moment as productive. Thus, in accordance with

our second condition, the dependence of the now on the not-now has to be seen as

manifesting itself in an intentionality springing from the now. Our third condition

requires that this intentionality be taken, not just as presenting the not-now, but also as

constituting the not-now as part of the order of objective time.

The result is what may be called a "teleological circle." It is a circle in which the

totality of time -- understood as the goal of a process -- brings itself about by grounding

this process. Thus, the whole of time, understood as grounding the moment in its

dependence, brings about the intentionality which is based on such dependence. It, thus,

results in the retentional process; and this process, constitutively understood, brings about

the progressive realization of precisely this same whole of time.

Since the second and third conditions have been the subjects of our last two

sections, let us begin by turning our attention to the first. The notion of the totality of

time as the ground of every moment comes when we see every moment as dependent on
 Notes
442

every other. Thus far, we have spoken of the dependence of the moments of past time.

Husserl writes in this regard:

We can temporally divide, in a certain manner, separate into pieces a concretely

filled duration. This, however, does not mean that these pieces of time can be
considered as concrete individuals or that they can be filled durations of
independent, concrete individuals" (Ms. E III 2, pp. 2-3, 1921).

This implies that no moment of already experienced, "filled" time can be conceived apart

from the moments which precede and follow it. In the forward direction, such

dependence proceeds to the present moment -- i.e., the present givenness of an

experienced object. Yet, we posit this object as "transcendent" insofar as we take it as

surpassing our already acquired experience of it. What we do is anticipate that it will

continue to provide us with further experience. For Husserl, the root of this

transcendence is the fact that the dependence of time does not end at the present moment.

It passes through it, linking it with the moments of anticipated or future time.

To see this, let us recall our earlier argument that no moment of past time can be

the first -- i.e., stand as an absolute beginning of time. For a moment to be initially given

as a moment in time, it must, as we said, have its locating horizon of pastness. When the

moment sinks down into pastness, this retained horizon accompanies it. It, thus, prevents

us from taking the past moment as a beginning of time -- i.e., as something with no

pastness relative to it (See above, ). Now, the linchpin of this argument is the

fact that the present moment must have this horizon of pastness. This follows because it

is not something capable of existing or being conceived by itself. As we cited Husserl,

such a moment is "only an ideal limit, something abstract which can be nothing for

itself." This means that it is "not differentiated from the not-now, but rather continuously

mediates itself with the latter" (HA X, Boehm ed., p. 40). The fact that it can only exist
 Notes
443

in continuous connection with what surrounds it signifies that it is "impossible" to

conceive of a now "which nothing preceded" (Ibid., p. 70). Hence, as we said, we must

always give it its locating horizon of pastness. The same argument can be made with

regard to the future. The "not-now" which surrounds the present moment also includes

what follows it. Thus, the mediation of the now with the not-now implies that we cannot

conceive the present moment as the last instant of time. We must give it a horizon of

anticipated, future time. The result is Husserl's "apriori law" according to which "there

pertains to every time an earlier and a later time" (Ibid., p. 10).

If we ask why the present moment cannot exist by itself -- why it must exist only

as an "ideal limit" -- we come to the fact that retentions are required to insert a moment

into the fixed order of successive time. Since this insertion is in terms of past -- i.e.,

retained -- time, the positing of a present moment is something that occurs in terms of "a

continuum which advances towards an ideal limit" (HA X, Boehm ed., p. 40). It is

posited, not directly, but as a limit of our retentions of past moments. As such, it is

linked to every moment which precedes it. It is "nothing for itself" because its positing

as the leading edge of past time depends upon the givenness of the moments of past time.

The same can be said about each of these past moments. Each was first presented as the

leading edge of its past. Having sunk into pastness, it still possesses its own horizon of

pastness. Indeed, a moment's position in past time is partially dependent on this horizon.

We say "partially" because these past moments also have their protentional reference.

Each is dependent, in its pastness, on the moments which are presented as following it.

Since the present moment is posited as the limit of this series, it, too, shares this

protentional reference. Posited as objectively present, its givenness is that of something

over against me in my nowness. Indirectly, of course, it posited as now. It is, thus,

given as a present protending the nowness which is always "ahead" of it. 7 In other
 Notes
444

words, its givenness is such that the dependence of time passes through it linking it with

the nowness which will appear as the next moment.

It is easy to extend the above argument so as to see every moment as dependent

on every other. All we need to do so is to see the dependence which passes through the

present as embracing the whole of future time. The future is grasped in anticipation

which means, as our last chapter showed, its presence is a matter of the re-presentation of

what we have already experienced. Thus, in anticipating the future as objectively given,

we depict its moments as having the same relations of dependency as those which link

together the past. By virtue of their dependency, the moments of the past are

characterized by an intentionality which points beyond them. Accordingly, the same

feature appears when, in anticipation, we re-present such moments as occupying the

future. Not only are its moments depicted as dependent, but such dependence passes

through every moment we might conceive as terminating the future. So conceived, the

future cannot have an end, i.e., a last moment which does not point beyond itself.

With this, we move from the thought of the dependence of time's moments to

that of time's infinity. From the latter, we can see how time as a whole can serve as a

ground for each of its moments. Yet before we do so, let us pause and make clear to

ourselves the levels of dependence which are implicit in our arguments. We first have

the dependence which characterizes moments qua objectively given as part of the fixed

order of time. Here, the infinity of time -- its not having objectively presentable first and

last moments -- is derived from the dependence of such moments. No moment can be

the first since each requires its horizon of pastness. None can be the last since every

moment that is objectively presented as now has already entered into the "over and

againstness" of past time. As such, it is dependent on the nowness in relation to which it

is objective, the nowness which is always "ahead" of it, always appearing as the next

now. To move to the next level of dependence, we must consider the process through
 Notes
445

which moments are objectively presented. Here, the objective dependence of moments

appears as a function of the retentional process. Thus, the fact that each moment occurs

with its locating horizon of pastness can be traced to each moment being the limit of a

series of retentions -- i.e., its being the limit of the co-present retentions along the vertical

which present this horizon. Similarly, the objective dependence of each moment on what

follows it can be traced to the protentional intentionality running through these

retentions. Each retention, in its having "sunk down," depends on further retentions

having entered the vertical. With this, we may speak of a third level of dependence.

This is the original dependence which results in time's intentionalities and, hence, in the

retentional process itself. The retentions on the vertical present the moments of past time

because each may be seen as including a whole series of retentions of retentions. Each

such retention, in its now, is dependent on a retention which, relative to it, is not now.

As such, it gives rise to an intentionality presenting the latter. The result, as we said, is

the presence of the past -- i.e., the moment which is presented as retained rather than as

impressionally given. Once we engage in a subjective reading of the time diagram, this

final form of dependence can be taken as pre-objective. It pertains to a process which,

prior to the objective presence of time, results in such presence. Put more radically, this

dependence results in the very existence of that which it makes intentionally present.

The obvious question here is how we can speak of the dependence of moments

before such moments actually exist. In speaking of the third form of dependence, we

refer to the "nows" and "not-nows" of our various retentions; and, in a subjective reading

of the diagram, we assert that their relation -- ultimately, their dependence -- results in

time. As such, it is what results in the distinction between the now and the not-now.

How is this possible? The answer involves the various levels of dependence as they

function in the above mentioned "teleological circle." The circle is such that the

objective dependence of each moment -- a dependence which pertains to already

 Notes
446

accomplished time -- gives rise to the pre-objective dependence. This is a dependence

which, as we shall see, gives rise to the productive intentionalities which result in the

accomplishing of time and its objective dependence. This circle, we may note, is implicit

in the move from the objective to the subjective readings of the time diagram. Having

spoken of dependence in the context of presenting the moments of already accomplished

time, we turned and considered the results of such dependence -- the retentional

modifications -- as constitutive of time. With this, the initial dependence becomes

involved in a process in which it is both a goal and a determining ground. It is, thus,

seen as functioning as part of the process's final cause.

To return to our argument, we note that the dependence of objectively

presentable moments is both immediate and mediate. The moment is immediately

dependent on the moments which surround it. Since the latter are also dependent on their

surrounding moments, the moment is mediately dependent on these. In other words,

every objective moment is linked to every other through a serial chain of dependencies.

As such, its ultimate dependence is on nothing less than the whole of time understood as

the unending totality of its interdependent moments.

When applied to experiences, the above conception gives us Husserl's claim that

"temporality ... designates not just something universally pertaining to every experience,

but a necessary form binding experiences with experiences" (Ideen I, Biemel ed., p. 198).

An experience, in having its time, is necessarily and formally bound to other experiences.

This follows because, as objectively presented, its first and last moments are linked

through a chain of dependencies with the moments surrounding this experience. Several

conclusions can be drawn from this. The first is that the independence of a content laden

moment is a formal impossibility. In Husserl's words, "... no concrete experience can

count as fully independent. Each, in its connection, 'stands in need of completion.' This,

according to its form and type, is not just any connection. It is rather a linked connection
 Notes
447

(gebundener Zusammenhang)" (Ibid., p. 202). Here, the continuity of experience follows

from the continuity of time. The latter follows from time's dependence -- i.e., from the

fact that each of its moments is "nothing for itself." Another conclusion is that every

experience, by virtue of its duration, necessarily "... takes its position in an unending

continuum of durations -- a filled continuum. It necessarily has an allsided, infinite,

filled horizon of time. This also signifies that it belongs to an infinite 'stream of

experience'." The individual experience, in having its finite duration, can begin and end,

"but the stream of experiences can neither begin nor end" (Ibid., p. 198). This unending

quality of the "continuum of durations" follows from the arguments that there cannot be a

first or last moment of objective time.

The Kantian tone of Husserl's remarks is unmistakable. They imply that,

although time in its moments is transitory, time itself, considered in its wholeness, is not

transitory. In Kant's words, "time ... is unchanging and abiding." This means that "time

does not flow away (verläuft sich nicht)," for, if we regard it as a whole, then there is no

"time" -- i.e., a time outside of the wholeness of time -- into which it could flow (Kritik

d. r. V., B 183; ed. cit., III, 137). For Husserl, this quality of time as a whole is also the

quality of the stream of experiences. The latter, as structured by the form of time in its

wholeness, "can neither begin nor end" -- i.e., progress into another time.

Let us recall our repeated assertion that a whole which does not have a "beyond"

is a unique singular. Such a singular exists simply as one and not as one among many

singulars, each having the same nature. Why is it that we must regard time as unique?

Why cannot we think of it only in terms of finite durations -- i.e., think of it as finite

times among finite times? What we are actually inquiring about is the basis for Kant's

assertion: "The infinity of time signifies nothing more than that every determinate

quantity of time is only possible through the limitations of one single time taken as a

ground underlying [this quantity]" (Kritik d. r. V., A 32; ed. cit., IV, 37, italics added).
 Notes
448

An answer can be provided by admitting that the Kantian conditions for the objective

grasp of successive and enduring time require the dependence of the moment (See above,

). The resulting interdependence of time's objective moments doesn't just lead to the

thought of the infinity of time; it also requires us to speak of time as a whole -- i.e., as a

continuity of non-independent stretches. For Husserl, the dependence of a moment is,

mediately, its dependence on this whole. Thus, in the view which sees time as a series

ofobjectively graspable moments, this whole must be taken as the ground of each

moment. Furthermore, if a moment of time must be thought of as "nothing for itself"

and, hence, as ultimately dependent on the whole of time, then the thought of the

moment's existence implies the thought of this whole's existence -- i.e., the existence of

the "unchanging and abiding" totality of moments. We can also say that the dependence

of the moment demands the independence of time in its wholeness. Only as independent

can the latter function as the ultimate ground of each of its moments. Independence,

here, means: not being dependent on another "time" in order to be. The thought of the

moment in its dependence, thus, leads to the thought of the whole of time as a "single

time" -- i.e., as a unique singular. In other words, it implies its thought as the abiding

totality of its moments, a totality which, in its all-inclusiveness, excludes another time

and, thus, has no "beyond" in terms of its dependence.

How does this totality or whole function in the temporal process? Before we

answer this question, we should emphasize the difference between a teleological process

and processes as they are ordinarily understood. The common understanding of a

process is that its actuality depends upon the actuality of its agent. In other words, the

cause must be actual in order for the effect to be actualized. This view is not just that of

modern physics with its focus on efficient causality. It also finds experession in the

interpretation of formal ontology which takes this as the science of the principles from

which the actual relations of facts can be derived. The principles, as exemplified by
 Notes
449

Plato's "really real" eidh, are regarded as causes pre-existingthe relations which they

determine.8 In distinction to this, the determining grounds of a teleological process are

not objectively given before the relations which instantiate them. They are first brought

into objective being by these relations. This does not mean that the facts which are

related have no inherent necessity in their relations -- i.e., no determining ground for

their being related in particular ways. It does, however, signify that this necessity is not

to be found in an already existent cause of the process forming these relations, but rather

in a goal towards which this process is directed. The goal, in other words, is the

determining ground of the process. This means that what is to be actualized -- i.e., the

goal -- determines the being of the actual and, in so doing, brings about its own

progressive actualization.9

To see the temporal process as teleological is to show that it does involve this

identity between ground and goal. Let us put this in terms of the fact that when, with

Husserl, we equate actuality and presence, we seem to be asserting that only the presently

given moment is actual. The past moments have expired and the future moments are not

yet given.10 Yet Husserl also asserts that the present moment is "nothing for itself." To

be in time, it must be dependent on such non-actual moments; indeed, it must be

dependent on their totality, time as a whole. The latter can, thus, be taken as determining

the being of the actual moment -- i.e., as grounding it in its dependence. In so doing, it

makes possible the intentionality which is based on the dependence of the now on the

not-now.

As we said, this intentionality presents this not-now. It makes the past moment

present in the form of a retention; and it makes this retention refer to the past moment.

Concretely, this means that the dependence of the now on the moments preceding it

yields a diagonal intentionality which can be read in two directions. It can be read as

making the earlier moments present in the form of retentions -- the very retentions which
 Notes
450

are the now's co-present "horizon of pastness." It can also be read as providing the

intentional references of our present retentions to successively given moments in the past.

Here, our present retentions refer to the transitory moments of time. Yet, taken in

themselves, i.e., in their co-presence with the ongoing now, such retentions do not pass

away. Nothing retained has to be lost. In Husserl's words, "... ideally a consciousness is,

indeed, possible in which everything is retentionally present" (HA X, Boehm ed., p. 31,

fn. 1). We can thus say that the ultimate result of the dependence of the moment is the

progressive actualization of time as Kant defined it -- time as transitory in its moments

and abiding in its wholeness. Time's presence in the form of retentions is its presence as

abiding -- this, even though these retentions refer to its moments as transitory. Here, of

course, we must add that such abiding requires that we speak of the dependence of every

moment, not just on the moments which preceded it, but also on those which follow it.

The intentionality occasioned by this dependence of the earlier moments on the later

allows us to speak of a vertical intentionality running through our retentions of such

moments. Its result is the "merging" which yields the abiding of time in the form of an

already accomplished, objective duration.

To speak more specifically of the progressive actualization of this duration,

several things are required. First, we must say that temporal dependence does not end at

the present moment or actual "now." It passes through it to the next. We must also say

that the dependence of the now on the next now exhibits itself in an intentionality

presenting the latter. If, in accordance with our third condition, we take this

intentionality as productive, then the intending of the next now constitutes it in its actual

givenness. The result is a new now and, hence, the modification of the present instant

into what is no longer a new now, i.e., its modification into a just past instant. The latter

does not vanish, but is rather made present again as a retention.

 Notes
451

A subjective reading of the time diagram, taken in isolation, would allow us to

speak of only our present retentions as immediately given. It would see the intentionality

which produces the next now as Husserl's vertical intentionality. This, it would claim, is

the origin of time. It unifies our present retentions into an accomplished duration.

Passing through our present retentions, it always points to what will be given as the next

moment. Considered as producing what it intends, it would, thus, advance this duration

from present to present by constantly adding the next moment to it. Yet behind such

intentionality is the dependence of moments; and behind this is the independence of time

considered as an abiding totality of moments. As already indicated, the latter is the goal

of the process which results in an increasing duration. But since it is what grounds every

moment's dependence, it can also be considered as the ground of this process.

The teleological nature of this conception becomes apparent when we say that

the process which results in the abiding totality of time is, itself, the result of the

moment's dependence on this same totality. We, thus, have the "teleological circle"

mentioned above. As we said, our ordinary understanding of a process demands that, in

speaking of the existence of the effect, we presuppose the existence of the cause. In such

an understanding, nothing can be self-caused -- i.e., bring itself into existence through its

effects. This, however, is precisely what we are asserting with regard to the totality of

time. We are asserting a productive intentionality, based on dependence, which

progressively brings about the object of this dependence. Our claim is that the whole of

time, which grounds the intentionality of each moment (and is, in fact, its ultimate

object) causes its own objective existence through this same intentionality. Here, of

course, we must add that, in any finite time, this whole cannot exist as something actually

given. Its objective givenness as an accomplished duration would require the totality of

time. It would demand the actual retention of all of time's moments which would, itself,

imply the exhaustion of time -- i.e., the pastness of all of its moments. Thus, as long as
 Notes
452

time continues, such a whole remains a goal of this process. As determining the process,

it functions as its teleological ground. Since, in fact, there is no time outside of the

wholeness of time into which this whole could progress -- i.e., change and become other

than itself -- this ground is absolutely timeless. The identity of ground and goal

contained in the notion of the whole of time signifies, then, that this whole is a timeless

not-yet permanently bringing itself into being.

All of this, of course, requires our granting that the intentionality which arises

from a moment's dependence is, in fact, productive. To review our conclusions, we can

say that since this dependence is twofold, so is this requirement. Thus, we must assert

that the intentionality which proceeds from the present moment to the next is actually

productive of this next moment. Its bringing the new now into existence is one with the

passing away or expiration of what was "just now" the present moment. Since the later

cannot vanish if duration is to be accomplished, we have the second part of this

requirement. The intentionality based on the dependence of the present moment on the

moment preceding it must be taken as re-producing the latter -- i.e., as making it present

again in the form of a retention.

The notion of this twofold, productive intentionality occurs in a manuscript from

1933. In it, Husserl considers "egological intentionality (volitional intentionality in the

widest sense)," including, as part of this, the intentionality found in social and sexual

drives. He asks whether, quite apart from any transcendent references to actually given

Others, such intentionality "has a preliminary stage (Vorstufe), one prior to a developed

world-constitution." He answers in the affirmative and sees its "primordiality" as a

systematic drive -- literally a "drive system" (Triebsystem). The last is understood as "an

original lasting streaming." His point is that our relations to Others have their basis in

the intentionality of time.11 He then continues:

 Notes
453
In my former doctrine of internal time-consciousness, I treated the intentionality that is
hereby exhibited simply as intentionality: directed to the future as protention and
modifying itself, but still preserving its unity as retention. ... May we not or rather must
we not presuppose a universal driving intentionality (Treibintentionalität), one which
unifies every original present into a lasting (stehende) temporalization and which,
concretely, propels (forttreibt) it from present to present in such a way that every
[temporal] content is the content of a fulfillment of the drive (Trieberfüllung) and is
intended before the goal? [Must we not presuppose that this intentionality] also [propels
it] in such a way that in each primordial present there are transcending impulses (Triebe)
of a higher level that reach out into every other present, binding them, like monads
together, in the course of which they are all implicit in one another -- implicit
intentionally? (Ms. E III 5 5, Sept. 1933; HA XV, Kern ed., pp. 594-95).

Husserl concludes this reflection with the assertion, "This would lead to the conception

of a universal teleology," one based on a "universal intentionality" (Ibid.).

What precisely is this "universal, driving intentionality"? The passage just

quoted makes the claim that it is responsible for the temporal process itself. Thus, the

intentionality acts to unify "every original present into a lasting temporalization." It

forms, we can say, out of the successively given nows, time as enduring or "lasting." It

also acts to propel this enduring "from present to present." In this, it is productive of the

ever new now which adds to the quantity of accomplished duration. The nature of this

productive intentionality is given in the next clause. On the one hand, the enduring and

the ever new now are to be regarded as contents "of a fulfillment of the drive" -- i.e., the

intentional drive towards temporalization. On the other hand, they are "intended before

the goal" -- i.e., before they actually exist. What we have here is an intentionality which

produces what it intends. The temporal contents whose presence would fulfill its

intention are intended before they exist and this intending is, in fact, a bringing of these

same contents into objective existence. Husserl, then, is asserting that there is a driving

intentionality directed towards temporalization, one which has as its "goal" new moments
 Notes
454

and a consequent increase of the duration which did not yet exist. It is an intentionality

which fulfills itself by bringing into existence and retaining in existence new moments.

In Husserl's words, what we have is the "nucleus of a primal modal intention, one which

simply arises and fulfills itself" (Ibid., p. 594). We confront, in other words, an

intentionality which is responsible for both its intention and its fulfillment.

The teleological conception that here arises becomes apparent once we translate

this into the terms of the dependence of the moment. We then assert that such "driving

intentionality" is a reflection of dependence. The dependence it expresses is that of every

present, actually given moment on the abiding wholeness of time. This dependence is

mediate. It occurs through the immediate dependence of the moment on those that

surround it. This means that, as "nothing for itself," a moment's actuality requires the

actuality of the surrounding moments. Its being in the now requires their being in the

now. Their present givenness has, in turn, the same requirement, and so on throughout

the whole of time. Thus, with regard to the future or not yet existent moment, Husserl

can claim that the very being of the presently given moment is one with a driving

intentionality, an intentionality that drives it to appropriate the future moment and bring

it into a present givenness. There is, in other words, a drive in each "original present,"

one which, by virtue of its dependence, "propels it from present to present." Each

present that is brought into existence is a "fulfillment" of this drive, even though it did

not exist when it stood as the drive's goal. The same dependence and resulting

intentional drive also exists with regard to the immediately past moment. This moment,

which no longer exists, is appropriated by the present in the form of a retention. As

Husserl elsewhere writes: "Necessarily linked to the consciousness of the [present] now

is the consciousness of the just past which is, again, a now. No experience can cease

without the consciousness of its ceasing and having ceased, and this is a new fulfilled

now" (Ideen I, Biemel ed., p. 200). The reason why the consciousness of the now
 Notes
455

requires the consciousness of the just past now is that the present now, as "nothing for

itself," cannot be given without the just past now. Thus, the intentional drive which is

based on the now's dependence is one that fulfills itself by reproducing or retaining the

past instant. This is why the givenness of the latter is a "new fulfilled now." Since this

intentional drive also fulfills itself in making the future present, its result is both the

progression of time and the retention of its moments. It progressively realizes the whole

of time as an accomplished duration, moving this duration from present to present by

constantly adding to it.

To see the teleological character of this process, we need only repeat our earlier

remarks. The whole of time -- which cannot be actualized in any finite time -- exists as

the telos or goal of the temporal process. But it also determines the process itself by

virtue of its being the ground of the moment's dependence. Thus, as a "not yet," the

whole brings about its own progressive actualization -- this by determining what does

actually exist in the immediate sense -- i.e., by determining the intentionalities of the

present, appearing moment.

Having seen how such a whole can be conceived as the teleological ground of

the temporal process, let us turn to our second question: How can we identify it with the

"timeless now" -- the now that is reached by the last stage of the reduction? For such an

identification, several things are required. As standing at the origin of time, the nunc

stans is pre-objective. Thus, we must be able to say that the whole of time is not actually

objective, but only has a pre-objective existence. We argued that this whole functions as

the ground of every moment by containing all its moments. Accordingly, we must be

able to make the same assertion about the nunc stans. Granting that the whole of time is

pre-objective, we must say that the nunc stans pre-objectively contains all the moments

of time. Finally, we must also see the nunc stans as determining each appearing moment
 Notes
456

as dependent. Like the whole of time, it must be seen as grounding the appearing

moment as an instant which is "nothing for itself."

The first condition is easily satisfied. When we say that the whole of time

determines the temporal process as its "not yet," we are asserting that it does not yet

objectively exist as an accomplished duration. As the process's ground and goal, it is, in

fact posited as pre-objective. Since it cannot be objectively given in any finite time, it

determines the temporal process prior to its being objectively given -- i.e., as that which

has a pre-objective being.

What about our second condition -- the condition which requires us to see the

nunc stans as pre-objectively containing all the moments of time? Our last two chapters

touched upon this. Thus, our sixth chapter, speaking of the stationary now which is at

the core of our functioning, asserted that "pre-objectively, the whole of the time required

for every possible synthesis is present in the pre-temporal now ..." (See above, ).

Our fifth chapter made the same point in terms of the notion of unique singularity -- the

very singularity which characterizes the whole of time. We noted that when we bracket

constituted (objective) time, the now that remains is absolutely unique. Once we perform

the reduction, there is no present "beyond" it. This means that this timeless, stationary

now represents in a reduced fashion the whole of successive time. It is the original

presence which each moment of time successively displays in its being now.

For Husserl, this display can be considered an objective exhibition of what the

stationary now implicitly contains. Speaking of "the constant, absolute, concrete self-

temporalization" of this now, he writes:

... in this -- this is the occurring (Geschenen) of temporalization -- its stationary being
exhibits itself (legt sich aus) in identifiable unities, unities which are one and the same in
the changes of the stream, persisting in their unity, constant in their streaming, but
constantly changing their temporal modes [i.e., their temporal positions vis-a-vis the
 Notes
457
now]. The unit (Das Eine) has its temporal unity in these temporal modes; but all the
temporal modes are already present in the simultaneous total now which, as stationary, is
a whole with all these temporal modes as moments ... (Ms. D 13 III, p. 16, July 7, 1933).

Interpreting Husserl, we can say that the constant streaming of objective moments

exhibits the constant or "stationary" quality of temporalization. The moments,

themselves, exhibit the stationary now at the origin of temporalization. They exhibit the

now whose constant quality makes the temporal process constant. Thus, as exhibitions of

this now, all the temporal modes or moments are "already present" within it. As "parts"

of this now, they "dwell within it non-independently" (Ibid., p. 15).

The same point about exhibition was made in our last chapter. As we cited

Husserl, "When the ego is ... finding itself in successive being, it is, in fact, exhibiting its

full present, exhibiting what it actually is now, what actually lies within it as an ego"

(Ms. A V 5 5, p. 10, Jan. 133). In other words, in its production of time, "the present ego

is self-shaping and bears in itself its past self-shapings." Per se, "it has no breadth, no

temporal extension ... But its exhibition necessarily leads to the temporality of

consciousness and its self-temporalization as a quasi-extension of the ego over time"

(Ibid., pp. 10-11). The assertion of this passage is that the ego becomes in time what,

pre-objectively, it already is before time. Thus, when the ego is engaged in temporal

self-making or self-shaping, it is exhibiting what it is now in a pre-temporal sense. The

ego considers itself to be in time insofar as it "bears within itself its past self-shapings."

It does this by retaining the results of its self-shaping or self-temporalization. Such

retentions form the data on the vertical line of the time diagram, a line which is taken as

attached to the ego's ongoing now. As we said, the vertical line is not, itself, the

"absolutely timeless" origin of the temporal process. Per se, it represents "the quasi-

extension of the ego over time." It is a first exhibition of what the stationary now pre-
 Notes
458

temporally contains. A second exhibition is given by the moments which are posited as

departing in time -- this through the constant modification (the "stationary streaming") of

the data on the vertical. With this, we have the actual extension of the ego over time.

To complete this picture, let us recall that not just the totality of time is included

in the stationary now, but also the alphabet of contents -- i.e., the totality of the content

which is required for every possible synthesis. This means that, in regarding the original

occurring of time, we confront a "non-temporal process of formation (Bildungsprozess)

which does not have a beginning or an end," one in which "the temporal data of sensation

arise from the non-temporal elements [i.e., the alphabet] of sensation" (Ms. E III 2, p. 49,

1921). With the temporalization of content, the ego can appear as a particular center. In

Husserl's words, it can appear "as the ego-center which gives temporal presence to sense

(sinn), as the center which stands in the presence of time, as the center in relation to

which past and future time have a sense-filled (Sinnhaft) relation" (Ms. C 3 III, p. 35,

Mar. 1931).

If we ask how all the modes of time are "already present" in the ego's now, we

can say that they are present as a goal. This is the first way in which Husserl can speak

of "... infinity existing only in the form of temporality, as a temporal succession of

finitudes, but [also as] included in the nunc stans" (Ms. E III 9, Nov. 5, 1931, HA XV,

Kern ed., p. 379-8). The whole of infinite time is required to exhibit what is included in

the nunc stans. Thus, the latter remains, throughout this infinite exhibition, the goal of

this process. It is also, however, its ground. To repeat Husserl's remark: "Infinity ... in

the form of temporality" is implicitly "included (beschlossen)" within it. Thus, the nunc

stans is the not yet objectively actual referent of the dependences which stretch from each

actually given moment to the whole of time. As such it is also the ground of the

streaming temporalization of each ego. Here, we conceive it as grounding all the

 Notes
459

moments of time in their dependency and,thus, as grounding the very process which

leads to its own progressive exhibition through the ego.

We can secure this last point -- which is our third condition -- by speaking of the

present moment as the appearance of the nunc stans. To call it an appearance of the latter

means, first of all, that it re-presents the latter in its quality of original presence. This

quality is such that "all the modes of time are already present" within the stationary now.

As we cited Husserl, they "dwell within it non-independently." They exist in the non-

extended identity of original presence -- a presence which comes to be successively

exhibited in extended time. The appearing moment thus re-presents its original identity

with all other moments through its being "nothing for itself" -- i.e., its being nothing

apart from the latter. Objectively regarded, it appears as dependent on what precedes and

follows it. It cannot be objectively now -- i.e., be an appearance of the nunc stans --

without its surrounding moments also being borught into the now. Insofar as this

dependence expresses itself in an impulse or drive (Trieb), we can say, with Husserl, that

"in each primordial present, there are transcending impulses ... which reach out into

every other present ..." These impulses "propel" or "drive" our ongoing nowness from

"present to present". Thus, to say as we earlier did, that the appearance in time of the

nunc stans is one with its departure from this appearance is, ultimately, to say that its

being in time is one with its streaming -- i.e., its being the ongoing now. It cannot be in

time without the intentional drive which makes it streamingly appropriate the future and

retain the past. This follows since both "temporal modes" are included in the nunc stans,

the very thing that its appearing is progressively exhibiting. Thus, in its self-exhibition,

the nunc stans is Husserl's "primal present" -- the present that is "primally

temporalizing." Insofar as this "primally generating" present is teleologically conceived

as the ground of the ego's temporalization, Husserl can write: "Each ego has something
 Notes
460

innate. Within itself, it innately bears the teleological ground of its streaming,

constituting, transcendental life" (Ms. E III 9, p. 11, 1929).

We can describe the relation between the non-temporal nunc stans and its

temporal appearing in ontological terms. Time, we said, represents the "whether it is" of

the object. It is the presence which makes things be present and actual -- this, no matter

what they are. Thus, when we speak of the original unity of time, we are speaking of the

unity of being itself. As embodying this unity, the nunc stans is presence per se -- i.e.,

being per se. It signifies being in its Parmenidean character, the character by which we

tautologically assert, everything that is is. The move to appearances is, as Parmenides

indicates, a move to plurality. In time, the now appears as continuously modifying itself.

This modification is simply the successive, serial display of its original unity. It is a

modification of the original unity of being into the continuity of existence -- a continuity

which implies plurality.

Let us put this "move to plurality" in terms of Husserl's doctrine that objective

time is constituted out of the continuous modification of what is given in the now.

Diagramatically, the data of the now form the elements of the vertical line. Their

modification is their downward moment along this line. This movement represents the

entrance into the retained of the already appropriated future -- the future which has

already become now. It also represents the increasing "pastness" of the retained. Here,

each retention, in its sinking down, becomes modified into a retention of itself. As such,

it adds a further degree of pastness to the content it retains. Relative to this increasing

pastness, the now of our co-present retentions appears to advance. There is a shift in its

relationship to the extended time which is presented through these retentions; and this

shift gives it its appearance as an ongoing now. We, thus, come to Husserl's doctrine that

temporalization is "a primal functioning ... a constant letting loose of retentions" (Ms. A

V 5, pp. 4-5, Jan. 1933). Diagramatically represented, it is a letting them descend along
 Notes
461

the vertical. The key point here is that the presence of "identifiable" moments,

"persisting in their unity" as they depart into pastness, requires the constant sinking down

of the data along the vertical. This, in turn, requires the constant addition to the vertical.

It is in terms of this doctrine that we can speak of the nunc stans' appearing in

time as demanding its modification -- a modification which results in the plurality of

moments. For Husserl, the nunc stans cannot appear as a now in time without its

appearing as an ever new now, i.e., as an ongoing nowness vis-a-vis a departing temporal

field. We can explain this modification by pointing to the fact that the nunc stans

surpasses every moment in its containing all moments. It, thus, cannot appear as a

moment without surpassing this appearance. As we earlier put this, it is always "ahead"

of its appearance; it is constantly appearing as what will count as the next moment.

Behind this continuous re-appearance of the nunc stans is the dependence of each of its

appearances. The present moment displays the nunc stans -- i.e., is its objective

appearance -- in the requirement that it cannot appear alone. Its objective presence

ultimately requires the presence of all the moments which are implicit in the nunc stans.

Thus, it displays the nunc stans in its dependence. Mediately dependent on the whole of

time, it is immediately dependent on the next moment -- the next appearance of the nunc

stans. Thus, its very givenness as the appearance of the nunc stans demands the

reappearance of the nunc stans. It requires its reappearance as the next moment. The

present moment, as dependent, must appropriate this next moment in order to be. Given

that this appropriation is one with the moment's own "modification" of sinking into

pastness, the appropriation is, so to speak, the "engine" of the downward movement

along the vertical. It is the engine of the "letting loose" of retentions. Hence, it also

brings about the presentation of the successive time through which our ongoing now

appears to move.
 Notes
462

The above, of course, simply translates what we said about the dependence of the

moment on the whole of time into the corresponding terms of the moment and the nunc

stans. The moment's dependence on the whole of time is, pre-objectively, its dependence

on the nunc stans. To reverse this, we can say that its dependence on the nunc stans is a

relation which the moment must objectively exhibit as its dependence on the whole of

time. This follows since such a whole, with its infinity, is the objective counterpart of

the nunc stans -- i.e., the one thing which could completely exhibit it. The point of our

translation is simply to locate the timeless, all-inclusive whole of time within us and to

see it as a pre-objective factor teleologically determining our own temporalization.

§6. The Individual's Horizonal Relationship to Temporal Constitution

Before we draw out the implications of the last section, we should guard against a

misunderstanding. We began by speaking of our subjective experience of time. We then

argued that such experience is constitutive of time. This might lead the reader to suppose

that time is our subjective product. Such a reader would take the retentional process as

constitutive of time and see this process as something occurring as an effect of a given,

individual subject. For Husserl, this is not the case. The individual subject is not a

ground or cause of time. He first appears because time grounds him. Thus, when we

speak of the retentional process as constitutive, this does not mean that this process arises

from a subject who is "there" before its action. The process is rather that from which the

individual can be said to arise or "awaken." Once constituted, the subject appears as a

person who retains and thereby grasps departing time. He also appears as the center of

an already constituted temporal field. He appears as the now from which retentions are

constantly being let loose. As such, he seems to be that in and through which time is

retentionally constituted. Yet, as should be obvious, this appearance has validity only
 Notes
463

insofar as we identify the subject with his ground -- i.e., with the now which, in

constantly modifying itself, actually serves as the engine of the retentional process.

The same point can be made by noting that the constitution which is directed to

the abiding totality of time requires an infinite retentional consciousness -- one which

"takes no notice of the limitation of the temporal field" (See above, ). Insofar as

we have a finite lifetime, such a consciousness is not our own. Yet we imply such a

consciousness (or at least its basis) when we admit that we cannot posit a first moment of

time. Here, our time consciousness implies what surpasses our limited retentional

consciousness. More particularly, it implies the duality of our essence -- a duality which

includes both our identity and difference with our ground. Such a duality is implicit in

Husserl's remarks:

Every monad has its immanent temporality. In this temporality, there is a beginning
taken as a beginning of its entering-into-relationship with other monads in its becoming
worldly (Verweltlichung) within objective time. This is also a form of co-existence, (in
the broad sense) a form of communalization. If the monad appears as a new actor in
world time, he also, finally, departs. When being and non-being are real temporal being,
then previously he did not exist and later he will not exist. In the immanence of a
monad, a beginning is a limit of its worldly self-constitution. A "pre"-beginning, does
this have a sense? Can it have one? The limit of self-constitution is the [initial] limit of
the developmental structure of a child, of the whole person in the world. If one could say
that this is not the beginning of being, but rather that of worldly development and of
being in the world, and that, therefore, the co-existence of monads extends beyond that of
the world, so one could try to interpret this as follows: The monad's being is a being in
and for itself in a self-constitution which never begins or ends in immanent temporality.
A particular form of this constitution, which does have a beginning and an end, is the
world accomplishing (verweltichende) constitution in which the monad becomes a
monad living in an environment (eine umweltlich lebende wird) and [as such is a monad
who] consciously, constitutively experiences other monads as worldly realities, entering
into relation with them (Ms. C 8 2, pp. 6-7, Oct. 1929).
 Notes
464

Interpreting Husserl, we can say that according to one part of a monad's essence, he does

have a beginning. Accordingly, he has a limited retentional consciousness. Yet another

part of his essence is such that we can say that a monad exists in "a self-constitution

which never begins or ends." This, of course, points to an unlimited retentional

consciousness.

Husserl goes on to express the relation between a monad's finitude and infinitude

in terms of "world time" and transcendental time." In real world time, "only the [finite]

lifetimes of monads are realized." Yet behind them, standing as their ground, is an

unbroken, transcendental time. "This naturally has no gaps; it is a perfectly continuous

(vollkommene geschlossene) infinity." From its vantage point, "the realization [of a

monad's finite lifetime] is not an affair of this monad alone, but rather concerns all the

monads. The totality of monads is what it is in a universal monadic causality which is an

intentional and teleological causality of monads existing in and for themselves. They

are for each other because they are dependent on each other in their being for each other"

(Ibid., p. 7, italics added). For Husserl, then, there is an unbroken transcendental time

which corresponds to the "self-constitution which never begins or ends." This is the time

which grounds the individual lifetimes of the monads, making them imply each other

insofar as they are parts of one unending time. My finite retentional consciousness refers

to my finite lifetime -- i.e., to a limited segment of "world time." Yet this consciousness

implies more than it actually retains -- i.e., implies Husserl's unending retentional

consciousness. As such, it implies Husserl's transcendental time -- the unending time

which corresponds to this unending consciousness.

Several things can be said about this time. To the point that it brings about the

"intentional and teleological causality of monads," it reminds us that "each ego has

something innate. Within itself, it innately bears the teleological ground of its streaming,
 Notes
465

constituting, transcendental life" (Ms. E III 9, p. 11, 1929). This ground, as we said, is

the primal present. The constant, unending quality of its constitution is what allows

Husserl to speak of each monad's being as existing "in a self-constitution which never

begins or ends." When he mentions the "intentional" causality of monads, we are

reminded of Husserl's position that the intentional, subject-objection relation is first given

through the intentionalities of the retentional process. This is another instance of the fact

that the "perfectly continuous" time accomplished by the primal present is, in its

unending quality, a time which corresponds to Husserl's all-embracing retentional

consciousness.

The nature of this consciousness can be discovered by looking at an individual's

finite retentional consciousness. As we said, behind his retention of moments is the

dependence of moments. This dependence stretches beyond his finitude lifetime to

include all the moments of time. As such, it does not just ground his retentional

processes -- i.e., his intentionalities, his being environmentally alive as a spatial-temporal

center -- it also grounds the retentional processes of every individual. This implies that

Husserl's all-embracing retentional consciousness is simply this dependence of moments.

The latter becomes an actual, objectively finite retentional consciousness by grounding

this finite consciousness. Our point may be put in terms of the last section's assertion

that temporal dependence does not signify that all the moments of time are already given

-- i.e., are "there" before they are retained. Temporal dependence is teleological. It

successively produces its objects which means that it successively results in the moments

on which each present moment is dependent. Objectively speaking, its result is the

"thereness" of such moments in the form of retentions. This "thereness" is also the

presence of a retentional consciousness -- one which can be differentiated by particular

sensuous content. What we have, then, is a kind of retentional "thickening" of time

 Notes
466

which underlies not just my retentional consciousness, but also that of every member of

the monadic totality.

The individual's relation to this temporalization can be clarified by turning to the

doctrine of horizonality. As we cited Husserl, every moment has its "horizon of

pastness ..." every experience, in having its temporal position, "... takes its place in an

unending continuum of durations -- a filled continuum. It necessarily has an allsided,

infinite, filled horizon of time" (Ideen I, Biemel ed., p. 198). Implicit in these remarks is

the claim that the horizonality of experiences has its origin in the horizonality of time.

This cannot be otherwise given that time is the form in which our experiences are cast.

Thus, when we abstract from time, what we have is simply the alphabet of contents, an

alphabet composed of the non-temporal elements of experience. It is through the

formative process of temporalization that "the temporal data of sensation arise from the

non-temporal elements of sensation" (Ms. E III 2, p. 49, 1921). Time, we can say, is the

"writing" by which this alphabet is temporally arranged so as to spell out a given world.

For Husserl, as we shall see, the horizonality of the world is an objectification of the

formal necessities involved in this writing -- necessities which can lead to the presence of

subjects.

To secure this conclusion, we must first turn to an examination of the features of

the notion of horizon. In tracing these back to the temporal process, we will uncover

their relationship to Husserl's all-embracing retentional consciousness.

The notion of horizon is, as we said, that of a series of experiences which have

been connected and, in their connections, determine the further experiences which can

join this series (See above, ). Now, if we ask what first links experiences together

so as to give them the possibility of forming a series, we come to the first of the features

of this notion: that of dependence. Experiences can form themselves into a horizon by

virtue of their dependence. Since this dependence demands their indefinite continuance,
 Notes
467

the "internal horizon" of a real object cannot end. This implies that for an experience to

count as an experience of a real object, it must be a member of an indefinite series of

experiences directed to it. Each such experience demands the possibility of a further

experience, an experience of the object from a different perspective or side. Without this

possibility, the object could not be posited as a "real unity" -- i.e., as a perceptual sense

which exhibits itself in an indefinite range of examples. Thus, to say that an object is

intentionally present as a sense is to say that our actual experience of it is always

surrounded by an indefinitely extendable horizon of further (potentially acquirable)

experiences. Indeed, insofar as an object's "true being" demands that our experience

indefinitely continue to confirm it, such being is reducible to an unending horizon of

mutually confirming experiences. With this, we have a second feature of the notion of

horizon. Experiences are horizonally linked together insofar as they point to an

underlying unity, a unity of which they can be said to be experiences. Experiences can

be said to mutually confirm or validate each other insofar as they continue to disclose the

presence of a persisting unity of sense.

These features are, of course, conditions for the pespectival appearing of an

object. A real object's internal horizon is composed of the perspectival appearing which

indefinitely continues to manifest the presence of a persisting sense. Both characteristics

are grounded in the temporal process. Thus, the indefinite continuance of experiences

points back to the dependence of the moments bearing these experiences. By virtue of

such dependence, temporality, as we cited Husserl, "designates not just something

universally pertaining to every experience but a necessary form binding experiences to

experiences" (Ideen I, Biemel ed., p. 198). Like the moment of time, the experiences

which fill it can only exist as part of a greater whole. Dependence is also the temporal

condition of the presence of a persisting sense. It yields the vertical intentionality

 Notes
468

running through our present retentions. It thus results in that merging and re-

enforcement of retained contents which can yield the presence of this sense.

Strictly speaking, temporality is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for

perspectival appearing. By virtue of its diagonal and vertical intentionalities, the

temporal process is inherently synthetic. It is inherently directed towards the production

of an apeparing unity. It is not, however, invariably successful. Its synthesis can become

frustrated. What we took to be an object's internal horizon may turn out to be only a

series of "empty anticipations." Failure is possible because positing requires not just

temporal synthesis but also an appropriate content. Thus, a successful positing requires

similar contents. Only these can re-enforce each other in the merging occasioned by

temporal dependence. With this, another feature of horizonality emerges. Since

particular contents are not inherently tied to particular moments, the horizon grounded by

the dependence of moments always remains contingent. In other words, a horizon may

fail as a horizon. It may cease to manifest an underlying unity. Thus, even though the

temporal process is inherently synthetic, the unity it attempts to synthesize is never

something which must obtain. Throughout our experience of it, the unity remains

something whose continuance can be cancelled.

Husserl writes: "Everything has its internal and external horizons" (Ms. C 7 II, p.

6, June 1932). We can make the same points about these external horizons that we have

just made with regard to the internal. They also manifest an indefinite continuance and

point to the contingent presence of an underlying unity. Such a unity, as we earlier

noted, is not that of a thing but rather that of the world. Thus, to move from the internal

to the external horizons of a spatial-temporal thing is to focus on it as a thing within a

spatial-temporal world. It is to link its perception to a broader perceptual field. In other

words, its apprehension is joined to the apprehension of the things which surround it.

The apprehension of each of the latter is similarly joined to the apprehensions of its
 Notes
469

surrounding objects. For Husserl, the ultimate terminus of this expanding series of

external horizons is "the totality, 'the world as a perceptual world.'" (Krisis, 2nd Biemel

ed., p. 165). This is the world which is posited as "the totality of things" (Ibid., p. 145).

Since an individual can never actually experience this totality, he has to say: "this world

exists for me in a core of experiencibility and [in] a horizon of the unexperienced" (Ms.

C 7 II, p. 6).

The individual, in a certain sense, can also assert this about each of the objects

within the world. Each has its unending, internal horizon of potential experiences. What

distinguishes the world horizon is that we see it as the ultimate ground of the validity of

our individual positings. As we cited Husserl: "To live is always to live in the certainty

of the world." In other words, "I always have the certainty of the world in each and

every thing" (Ms. A VII 1, p. 5, Dec. 1933 - Jan. 1934). This follows from the thing

being posited as something "of" the world. An indivudal experience is "of" a thing only

insofar as it forms part of a series manifesting the thing's underlying unity. Similarly, a

thing is "of" the world only when this set of experiences is part of a greater set -- one

which manifests the perceived world's unity. This means, with regard to particular sets

of experiences directed towards particular things, "... as one takes place, it always

presupposes others having objective validity. It always, thus, presupposes for the

observer the universal ground of the validity of the world" (Krisis, ed. cit., p. 151). In

other words, we cannot posit a thing as something "of" the world -- i.e., as having a

worldly sense -- without also positing the underlying unity which is the sense of the

world. To posit a worldly reality, we must engage in an expanding, external horizon of

experiences, each experience presupposing for its validity the presence of further

confirming experiences. Such a horizon cannot be thought to be complete -- i.e., to

ultimately ground the validity of any of its elements -- until it embraces "the totality, 'the

world as a perceptual world.'" Here, the objects of the world "... have their actuality for
 Notes
470

us only in the constant movement of making corrections -- in the revisions of their

validities -- this, as an anticipation of an ideal unity," (Ibid., p. 148).

This "ideal unity" is both the underlying sense of the world and the harmonious

unity of objects in one perceptual world. As the latter, it embraces the totality of an

object's relations to all other objects; and this includes the totality of the ways in which

such objects are implied in any single object's positing as something "of" the world. We

can also say that such relatedness presupposes an underlying unity -- a unity which we

presuppose is saying that an object is something "of" the world. Thus, as we remarked

with regard to an object's internal horizons, our experiences of it are horizonally linked

together -- i.e., form parts of one horizon -- only insofar as they manifest an underlying

unity. The same point obtains when we speak of the external horizons of a thing. It is

only insofar as the experiences composing such horizons manifest the world's "ideal

unity," its unity as a single sense, that we can speak of these experiences as forming parts

of one all embracing world horizon. For Husserl, then: "The world is not constituted as

an individual reality is. It is the original, constantly changing horizon which yet remains

one. It is the unthematic horizon which is present in every individual reality" (Ms. A VII

1, p. 4, italics added). Since the world represents the totality of things, this world

horizon is not just singular, but uniquely singular. Taken as the totality of what we can

experience, it cannot have a beyond. To cite Husserl again: "... the world does not exist

like an existent entity or object. It rather exists in a singularity for which the plural is

senseless. Every plural and singular that can be drawn from it presupposes the horizon of

the world" -- i.e., the world as the totality of our actual and possible experiences (Krisis,

p. 141).

To put this in terms of validity, we can say that to posit a thing as a worldly entity

is to place its internal horizon in the context of the external horizons which give it its

defining, worldly sense.12 As we explicate these external horizons, our experiences

 Notes
471

confirm or fail to confirm our theses concerning its being in the world. Defined in terms

of the world, the object receives its sense from its relations to other objects; and the same

can be said about these objects. Thus, the horizons which manifest these relations must

expand until they embrace the whole of experience. For Husserl, it is this whole, taken

as a uniquely singular, self-confirming totality, which we ultimately presuppose in any

particular claim about being in the world.

Behind this presupposition is the world's temporal givenness. The horizonality of

such givenness is what results in the horizonality of our experience of the world. In

Husserl's words:

Horizonality pertains to everything which I can claim as actively experienced, as

actively grasped or graspable. Everything has its internal and external horizons.
It has them as the potentiality that it can be brought into experiential
apprehension as something co-existing, co-valid [with the other things I grasp.].
An enquiry into the most general meaning of horizon aims at the universal form
of the world as the present world of experiences, the world as I now find it and
have always found or can [in the future] find it. Both the world as presently
experienced by me and every [individual] thing which I experience as worldly
have temporal modes of givenness. The primal form of these (the primal mode)
is the streaming present with the horizonality which streamingly pertains to it, the
horizonality of the temporal modes" (Ms. C 7 II, p. 6).

Time, therefore, is the "universal form" of my experience of the world. The

horizonality which petains to such experience is "the horizonality of the temporal

modes." As we said, this horizonality is based upon temporal dependence. For Husserl,

such dependence makes temporality a "form binding experiences with experiences"

(Ideen I, Biemel ed., p. 198). Thus, like the moment of time, the experience which
 Notes
472

"fills" it can only exist as part of a greater horizon, i.e., as part of an "all-sided, infinite,

filled horizon of time" (Ibid.).

The result is Husserl's notion of an expanding horizon of experiences. This is a

horizon which cannot be complete until it embraces the totality of experience -- i.e., the

whole of the experiential world. Implicit in this notion is the thought that nothing less

than the whole of experience can serve as the grounding condition for each individual

experience. The possibility of the latter is dependent on the former. This means that the

worldly being and validity of an experience is dependent on a totality of experiences

which, in not admitting a beyond, is both self-referring and uniquely singular. To trace

this to the form of time is simply to repeat our assertion that the whole of time is the

grounding condition of each of its moments. Each moment of time is immediately

dependent on those which surround it, hence each is mediately dependent on the whole of

time. The latter is the ultimate object of the intentionalities which spring from the

moment's dependence. Thus, every moment of time is one with every other in finally

having the same intentional reference. Every moment is a moment "of" the same whole

of time. This whole, then, is completely self-referring. It does not point beyond itself --

but only to itself. Granting this, the unique singularity of time can be said to be the

"primal form" of the unique singularity of the world. It is what makes the world a world

-- i.e., a totality of objects whose experience does not refer beyond itself to yet another

world.

If we take the worldly being of an experience as it being temporally given, i.e., its

being a "datum within the objective order of time," this is also conditioned by the form of

temporal dependence. The intentionalities arising from such dependence are what first

allow us to place an experience in time -- i.e., posit it as a "datum." Since such a

"datum" has its worldly validity as an experience "of" the world, this too can be traced to

these temporal intentionalties. The latter unify our experience and, in so doing, situate it
 Notes
473

in a greater whole. In other words, their action is such that just as each moment is "of"

the whole of time, so each experience which fills it is "of" the world which is structured

by this whole.

We can pursue this last point by recalling that experiences are horizonally linked

together only insofar as they manifest an underlying unity. For Husserl, the "ideal unity"

of the world is something aimed at -- i.e., is a goal -- "in the constant movement of

making corrections" and revising validities. It is, in other words, a teleological unity. In

its present state, "the world ... exists, but exists in 'contradiction' with itself. It exists but

does not yet exist insofar as it is always existent in relative true being and relative non-

being" (Ms. E III 9, Nov. 5, 1931; HA XV, Kern ed., pp. 380-81). Neither its true being

nor its non-being (our cancelled positings) are absolute. Both are relative to what we

shall uncover in our expanding horizon of experiences. Now, if we ask why our

experiences are horizonally linked together -- i.e., why they are directed towards

manifesting an ultimate unity, why, in other words, this unity stands as the ideal,

teleological goal of our experiences -- the answer is to be found in the horizonality of

time. By virtue of this horizonality, time is inherently synthetic. No limit can be set to

the diagonal and vertical intentionalities which arise from the dependence of its

moments. This means that its own all-embracing unity as a single time is its inherent,

teleologically determining goal. It is because of this that filled time, i.e., our actual

experience, is inherently directed towards the unity of a single world.

This does not mean that this world must obtain. For Husserl, "Every fact, and

thus, the fact of the world is, as universally admitted, contingent qua fact. This implies,

assuming that it exists, that it could be different from what it is; [it implies] that it could,

perhaps,even not be" (EP II, Boehm ed., p. 50). Thus, the facticity of the world remains

such that it is possible for the worly horizon to break up into a tumult of sensations. The

teleological determination of our experiences does not dispense with this facticity. It is
 Notes
474

rather its temporal compliment. This follows because when we say that the world has a

factual, contingent character, we mean that it cannot be fully determined beforehand. Its

past givenness does not completely determine what will be given. The teleological

perspective does not deny this. It rather speaks of what will be given as helping to

determine what is given. Thus, teleologically speaking, the ideal unity of the world

functions to determine the world as its not-yet. Since the determination by this not-yet

implies a lack of complete determination by the past, the results of already accomplished

syntheses remain contingent. We will return to this point in a later section. For the

present, it is enough to say that teleological determination does not prevent the

appearance of what, from the perspective of the already constituted, is an inappropriate

content. Such a content, taken as factually given, can disrupt the results of temporal

synthesis -- this, even though the temporal form of synthesis continually structures our

experience.

Husserl's notion of the "ideal unity" of the world can put in terms of a general

claim underlying this and our previous chapters: the world as it exists through time is

self-objectification in time of the nunc stans. As our last section indicated, the nunc stans

is the original, pre-objective unity of the moments of successive time. It manifests itself

in their interdependence and, thus, in the horizonality of filled time. It is because of this

that our experiential world is a world -- i.e., an interdependent whole. Its being a whole

is, in fact, a presupposition for its appearing in contradiction with itself. What is

unrelated is simply other. It is only when it is seen in terms of a unity which should

objectively obtain that its lack of apparent unity -- i.e., its self-contradiction -- can be

claimed.

Husserl's assertion that the world "exists but does not yet exist" has its sense in

the context of this "should." The unity presupposed by his assertion that the world exists

in self-contradiction is an all-embracing unity, one which should obtain but does not do
 Notes
475

so. It is taken as a goal of the world's progressive actualization. This goal is inherent in

the temporal process which is teleologically directed towards the realization of the

wholeness of time. As the ultimate referent of every determinate quality of time, this

wholeness is what makes each time a part of the unity of a single time. Each time is "of"

the whole insofar as it is part of a process manifesting this temporal unity. Yet,

objectively speaking, the whole of time is such that it can never manifest itself in any

finite time. The dependence of each time on the whole of time is, then, its dependence

on the not-yet. It is its dependence on a goal -- i.e., on a unity which has not yet been

objectively achieved. Since dependence expresses the relation of grounding, this is also

the dependence of every moment on its pre-objective ground -- i.e., on the nunc stans.

Thus what we confront is a dependence on a ground which, as a goal, objectively realizes

itself through such dependence. When we regard time as filled with content, the same

assertion can be made about the world. For Husserl, the world horizon, in its unique

singularity, grounds the being and validity of every experience taken as an experience

"of" the world. Yet this horizon is, itself, what these experiences themselves collectively

realize. Thus, the ideal unity of the world is both a ground and a goal of the process of

the world's realization as a temporally unfolding structure. The key point here is that the

ideal unity of the world is that of time. It is the unity of the nunc stans objectively

exhibiting itself in the temporal dependence which structures the world horizon.

With this, we may recall why we initially asserted that the horizonality of the

world springs from the necessities involved in temporalization. Our claim was that such

necessities can lead to the presence of individual subjects. To reach this conclusion, we

must focus on one last feature of Husserl's notion of horizon, namely its intersubjective

character. As we mentioned in our third chapter, the givenness of the world in its

horizonality is, correlatively, the givenness of Others. Others are implied by my

horizonal being or, more precisely, in my positing my being in the context of a

 Notes
476

surpassing world-horizon. They are implied as "fellow bearers-validators" of the world-

horizon (See above, ). This does not mean that the world-horizon is the result of

the constitutive actions of individual subjects. They are rather, as we said, "born" along

with the world in its horizonality and transcendence. They are correlates of the latter.

To merely indicate our arguments in this regard, they start from the premise that

the horizonality of our experience is its perspectival character. The perspectival ordering

of experience is correlated to a defined 0 point in space and time. It, thus, corresponds to

the ego taken as a "pure" center of experience. It is also correlated to this ego's embodied

finitude. A perspectivally experiencing ego has a real component -- i.e., is also a "real"

ego -- insofar as it experiences itself as spatial-temporally situated and, hence, as

incapable of being in two places (two "heres") at the same time. The same perspectival

character of experiences is linked to the infinity of the world in which the subject finds

himself. This infinity results from the unending character of the perspectival series

composing the internal and external horizon of objects. With this, we have Husserl's

assertion that "... the life of each transcendental subject is a life of finite being immersed

in infinity" (Ms. A V 10, p. 24, Nov. 9, 1931). His being as a finite center is inherently

correlated to an infinite world horizon. But the latter, in surpassing his finite being, is

correlated to Others. The concept of this horizon includes the possibilities of other

centers -- other finite subjects who are "there" while he remains "here."

The key term of the above is "correlated." Subjects do not ground the world

horizon. As the correlative of such subjects, this horizon is rather the result of what

grounds both itself and such subjects. The ground, in surpassing its finite self-

expressions (i.e., individual subjects), manifests itself in the horizonal structure of their

experiences. It makes such experiences imply infinite, open ended possibilities of being;

and this includes the possibility of an unending plurality of fellow subjects.

 Notes
477

Let us put this in terms of Husserl's position that the horizonality of the world is

based on the horizonality of time -- the latter being a result of the necessities involved in

temporalization. The first such necessity is the dependence of the moment. The second

and the third are the resulting diagonal and vertical intentionalities. Now, the reason why

the perspectival arrangement of experiences is a correct rather than a ground of the

central ego is that both appear through temporal synthesis. Given the proper content,

both are temporally constituted. As we said, the unending character of perspectival

appearing is the result of the dependence of moment. Its one in many character is given

by the interweaving of time's intentionalities. These are the very same intentionalities

which situate the ego in the ongoing, central now. Temporalization, in fact, involves the

co-constitution of all the elements of the intentional relation. It is a constitution of them

in their different manners of appearing. Within it, the perceptual experience is

distinguished from the perceived object, and the perceiver of this object appears as the

ongoing center of his perceptual process (See above, ). Furthermore, by virtue of

the horizonal-perspectival character of his perceiving, the perceiver takes himself as "a

finite being immersed in infinity." His finite experience is understood as part of the non-

finite world-horizon, the very horizon which is taken as implying his Others.

Behind this horizon is, of course, the dependence of the moments of content-filled

time. Indeed, temporally considered, the world-horizon is just this dependence. Since

Husserl's all-embracing retentional consciousness has also been identified with such

dependence, we can equate the world-horizon with this non-finite consciousness. This

means that the latter has the same relation to my finite retentional consciousness that the

world-horizon has to its finite part which I call my actual, "lived," experience. In fact,

the relation is the same as that between Husserl's perfectly unbroken "transcendental

time" and the "real time" of my finite lifetime. This relation can be variously

characterized. It is, we can say, a relation between the explicit and the implicit, i.e.,
 Notes
478

between that which is explicitly experienced and that which is only anticipated by means

of horizon. It can also be called the relation of the part to the whole, where one takes the

part as dependent on the whole and, hence, as implying it.

All of these characterizations spring from temporal dependence. Such

dependence yields the intentionalities which result in the "real time" of a lifetime. The

"life"of this lifetime is the set of experiences which have become unified into a distinct

retentional consciousness. The finitude of this consciousness includes its being spatially,

temporally situated since the very process which grounds it also allows it to experience

the world perspectivally. Yet the dependence of the moment, being inherently unlimited,

stretches beyond this consciousness. It, thus, places it in a horizon context, one which

implies, as equivalent possibilities, other centers of experience, other lives and lifetimes.

This means that I have to say that, by virtue of the dependence of the moment, the

intentionalities which ground me could just as well have grounded Others. I imply these

Others since my own being, as grounded by this dependence, indicates a greater whole --

one capable of "bearing" and "validating" not just myself but also an unending totality of

finite subjects. Such subjects, as we cited Husserl, are both "monads existing in and for

themselves" and "are dependent on each other" (See above, ). The nature of this

dependence is teleological since it is on a whole which is brought into existence through

their collective existence "in and for themselves." Otherwise put: the whole of time, in

grounding the dependence of its moments, brings about the intentionalities which result

in the existence of monads in and for themselves. In so doing, it brings about its own

progressive actualization as something objective -- i.e., as the time which stands, with the

world, over and against such monads. The dependence of monads on each other is, one

level, their dependence on the world conceived as a ground of being and validity. On

another level, it is their dependence on the temporal wholeness which makes the world a
 Notes
479

world. As such, it is also the interdependence of monads since they are, collectively, that

in and through which this wholeness comes about.

Here, of course, we should reemphasize that we cannot speak of the world, of its

experience, or of experiencing monads without taking content into account. It is only

when content is given that a monad can appear as a spatial-temporal center -- i.e., as

"here" in a perspectivally appearing, spatial-temporal world. Before this, there is no ego;

there is only the abstract form of temporal synthesis. For Husserl, this form is

particularized through a particular content. Since this content has factual character, the

particular monad which can result must be contingent. So must the world and its

correlate: the transcendental totality of monads.

The above may be put in terms of a series of requirements. For a particular

subject, we require a particular environment. What we need is the differentiation of

contents through time. In other words, we need the self-surpassing (or "self-

modification") of the nunc stans since this, as we said, is the "engine" of the temporal

process. Now, insofar as this self-surpassing yields the horizonal-perspectival character

of experience, it can result in the monad in the horizonality of its experiential being. It,

thus, can be said to ground its implication of Others through such horizonality. Yet the

very sense of this horizonality implies contingency. It must, if it is based on the self-

surpassing which generates new moments. Each such moment, insofar as it surpasses the

previous apperances of the nunc stans, represents, we asserted, "a new stage for settling

the world's accounts" (See above, ). It represents a newness which surpasses and

thereby puts at risk the already constituted.

Having said this, we must add that this newness which puts the world at risk is

not, ultimately, a sign of the moment's independence. Qua content laden, its factual

character does point to its independence vis-a-vis the past -- i.e., its not being completely

determined by the content of what has already been given. But this independence is
 Notes
480

matched by a dependence on the not-yet. Temporally speaking, it is dependent on the

whole of time. Qua content-laden, it is dependent on that "full" absolute which includes

both time and content. Thus, its content filled presence surpasses the already constituted

because it is the manifestation of Husserl's absolute present, the present in which "there

'lies' all time and world in every sense" (Ms. CI, Sept. 21-22, 1932; HA XV, p. 668). In

other words, each content-filled appearance of the absolute surpasses what has been by

being a partial manifestation of all that has ever been or will be. The full manifestation

of the absolute present is nothing less than the world horizon understood as an "all-sided,

infinite, filled horizon of time." The fact that the moment cannot be without this horizon

and yet can disrupt it, points to this horizon's all inclusive character. It is a character

which includes the possibilty of its own dissolution through the very moments which

actualize it. This, as we shall see, involves a corresponding possibility for the monads

who collectively actualize the world horizon. The possibilities of the horizon include the

possibilty of such monads disrupting it.

§7. The Rational and Theological Aspects of the Individual's Relation to Temporal

Constitution

Before we take up the theme of this disruption, two further items need to be

considered: Husserl's positions on reason and God, the latter being taken as reason's

telos. Both are extensions of the doctrine of horizonality.

Horizonality is connected to reason through the notion of positing. A "tumult" of

sensations does not form a horizon. Our experiences, we said, are horizonally ordered

when they manifest an underlying unity. Since the latter is the sense of the posited

object, horizonality and positing are correlative notions. The same point holds for the

world-horizon. Our experience of the latter is correlated to our positing the world's

underlying sense or "ideal unity." Each object is "of" the world insofar as its own unity
 Notes
481

fits into that of the world. Our perceptions are "worldly" insofar as they posit being as

being-in-the-world. They are "worldly" when they include the sense of the world in the

senses of their particular objects. As Husserl writes, this implies that "every worldly

perception inherently bears, as a horizon, its sense of being as something all-temporal"

(Ms. B III 4, p. 39a, Dec. 1932). All-temporality is required because the whole of time is

required to manifest the sense of the world. In itself, the world "... is nothing but the idea

of the infinitely extended, harmonious totality of all experiences, of all momentary living

presents, of all [such subjective presents] that are presently actual or were actual or will

in the future be actual, and of all the possible experiences indicated as co-valid in these

subjective times" (Ms. B III 7, p. 3, 1933).

If horizonality involves positing, it also involves reason. This follows because a

positing act is an "act of reason." As we cited Husserl, "... 'truly existing object' and

'object capable of being rationally posited' are equivalent correlates" (Ideen I, Biemel ed.,

p. 349). At the basis of this equivalence is the fact that positing is essentially a "making

sense" of our experiences. It is a grasping of their one-in-many character where the unity

stands for the one thing of which we are having many experiences. Here, the laws by

which we grasp this unity in multiplicity are taken as the "rational" laws -- i.e., those of

logic (See above, ).

We can focus on the temporal aspect of this equivalence by considering one of

these laws, that of non-contradiction. It states that the same thing cannot, in the same

sense, be and not be. If we take being as being present in time, we can see how this law

may be reinterpreted in terms of the intentionalities constituting the temporal field. Such

intentionalities do not just place contents within self-identical moments, they also unify

these contents into the persisting presence of self-identical objects. Furthermore, they

result in our own identical presence. They help give each of us a distinct "here" and

"now" with regard to a content-and object-filled environment. Thus, to say that we or

 Notes
482

our objects could both be and not be in the same objective, worldly sense is to disregard

the temporal intentionalities which help establish this sense. It is to assert that such

intentionalities are and are not operative in some specific instance. With this, we can

make the more general point that the formal or "analytic" laws of rationality can be

reinterpreted as laws of positing and the latter can be understood as laws of temporal

synthesis. Here, the a priori character of the formal logical law finds its roots in the a

priori character of such synthesis -- i.e., in the fact that such synthesis must obtain if a

real object is to be given; this, no matter what the object's particular character. Thus, the

universality of the logical law follows once we reinterpret it in terms of the diagonal and

vertical intentionalities which unify our consciousness, the intentionalities which "make

sense" out of our experiences by providing the temporal basis for the positing of an

object as a one-in-many.13

As we said, such intentionalities are "temporal necessities." Along with the

dependence of the moment, they give the necessary conditions for temporalization, thus

grounding the horizonal structure of the world. In serving as the basis for the underying

unity correlated to this structure, they also ground the world's rationality. Thus, given

the equivalence between rationality and positing, the factthat time is inherently synthetic

-- i.e., inherently directed towards positing -- means that it is inherently directed towards

rationality.

Husserl puts this in terms of "motivation." He writes that "the unity of

temporalization, of the objective temporalization of a world ..., is a unity of

developmental motivation" (Ms. E III 4, pp. 28-29, 1934). This is our motivation to

make sense of our experience, i.e., to posit its underlying unity. Behind such motivation

is the fact that we "live in a universal teleological temporality, one in which an inherent

teleological causality has its form ..." (Ms. K III 4, p. 45, 1934-35). The form springs

from the dependence of the moment, a dependence which always links the moment to a
 Notes
483

greater whole. The resulting teleological causality is manifested by every whole of time

as it functions as a not-yet for the moments which are its parts. Each moment, in its

dependence, is "of" this greater whole; each is also "of" the object which is synthesized

through the intentionalities springing from this same dependence. The object, then, is

not just a goal of this synthesis. Through its temporal form, it is also its ground. It is a

not-yet which, in a certain sense, "motivates" its own positing. The same thing can be

said about the whole of time and, indeed, about its correlate: the world. To assert that

time is inherently synthetic is to assert the teleological causality of the world. It is to

claim that we are temporally motivated to posit the world's ideal or "rational" unity.

When we speak simply of our motivation, we do not fully capture what Husserl

has in mind. The "teleological temporality" which motivates us to posit the world is also

that which grounds us as positing subjects. Expressed in terms of the correlation between

horizonality and rationality, this means that the temporal grounding of subjects as

correlated to the world horizon -- as subjects who appear as the "bearers-validators" of

the existing world -- is also their grounding as subjects who appear to bear and validate

the world's rationality. Furthermore, if we say that individual, subjective existence is

horizonally grounded, we must also say that it is rationally grounded, both forms of

grounding being ultimately traced to time. In each case, we have an example of the

"teleological causality" of the world -- this, through the temporalization which gives rise

to the world. Let us put this in terms of the equivalence of rationality and positing. For

Husserl, such equivalence signifies that "the world in general (Überhaupt) ... has, in

essential necessity, the form of the logos, of true being ..." This "logos" is the world's

ideal rational unity which is also its "true" posited being. The teleological causality of

the world allows Husserl to fill this out by adding: "In order that there can be the world

and the subjectivity constituting it (the world ... that has ... the form of the logos ...), the

world must, preceding from pre-being to being, also constitute rational persons within
 Notes
484

itself. Reason must already exist and must be able to bring itself to a logical [rational]

self-disclosure in rational subjects" (Ms. E III 4, p. 25, 1934).

The point of this passage extends beyond the simple conclusion that world-

constitution, as an affair of reason, requires the presence of rational subjects. Given that

constitution occurs in and through subjects, the self-constitution of the world must

include the constitution of subject as the means through which it can proceed. The

implicit point of this passage is that this relation is teleological. We can put this in terms

of our assertion that the world-horizon grounds both the being and validity of our

experiences and yet is, itself, made actual by such experiences. Here, the same point is

implicitly being made about the world's "logos" -- i.e., the ideal unity which links our

experiences into a world horizon. This logos brings itself about through the positing

activities of individual subjects; and these are subjects which come to be as elements of

its own self-constitution. On the one hand, we must say that "transcendental subjectivity

brings about its own sense of being and that of every worldly reality to the level of the

logos" (Ms. E III 4, p. 31, 1934). On the other hand, we must also claim: "the

logicification (logifizierung) of transcendental subjectivity, of the totality of monads, is

part of logical self-constitution ..." In other words, "the logos of the constitution of the

logos includes itself ...," i.e., includes its self-constitution through the rational agency of

individual monads (Ibid., p. 33).14

Such agency, we can say, is grounded by reason, but grounded by it as its not-yet.

Here, the ongoing constitution of the world's logos is matched by the progressive

development of our reason. To bring our own rational development to the level of the

logos is our constant, if unacknowledged goal. In Husserl's words:

The lower stage [of rational development] does not yet know anything of the future
stage, the stage which will become intentional on the basis of its intending [i.e., the
 Notes
485
intending springing from the lower stage]. Its becoming, however, is a coming to be
which is directed towards reason. Naturally, it does not have any knowledge of true
being. This is the accomplishment of the reason that has [already] come to be. Yet,
precisely the ego which I am in accomplishing this, the ego which I apodictically am and
which I am in my human community, exhibits a coherence in its development, a
development which is necessarily proceeding towards reason. ... Being does not exist
before "human beings" and their reason. It exists rather in and through them. And yet it
does exist in its preliminary stages as the pre-rational becoming rational -- in the course
of which, however, reason is presupposed as existing, as "constituting after the fact"
("nachkonstituierend") both true being as pre-rational and the development [of such pre-
rationall being] through already existing reason. Reason, as ultimately constituting
being, as constituting in an ultimate sense the being of all relativities of being [i.e., of all
relatively "true" beings], is in a way beyond all being. Yet it is, in itself, a level of being,
a level which is "recognized" through already existing reason (Ibid., p. 29).

According to this passage, reason is a "level of being" insofar as it is present in a given

person and the particular rational world which confronts him. Such a person is, of

course, a member of a "human community" and his world in its full sense is a result of a

collective positing. When Husserl asserts that reason is "beyond all being," he thus

means that it is beyond all constituted being -- i.e., beyond the developmental stages of

our human being and those of the world we posit. Here, it appears as the ground and the

goal of positing. As such, it gives us our coherent development, a development which,

even though we are unaware of it, is directed "towards reason."

This relation between the ground and the goal is, of course, ultimately temporal.

Because it is, we can understand it in terms of the grounding of the retentional

consciousness of the monad. By virtue of the temporal intentionalties which underlie the

passive constitution of its unity, this consciousness is inherently positing. Its grounding

is such that it "must constitute beings" (Ms. K III I, viii, p. 4, 1935). Thus, given the

equivalence between rationality and positing, it is also inherently rational. It "must", in

 Notes
486

its passive synthesis, posit a world which objectifies the rational laws of temporal

synthesis. This, of course, is only half the story. Rationality is not just a matter of

passive synthesis. As involving the correction and harmonization of the elements of our

passively given world, it requires active synthesis (See Ms. B III 7, p. 2, 1933). To

understand this, it is necessary to turn to the nunc stans which is the ultimate ground of

our retentional consciousness. As the anonymous center of this retentional

consciousness, the acting ego has a point of identity with the nunc stans. The individual

manifests this identity in his finite freedom -- i.e., in his confronting alterantive

possibilities. Such freedom, we can say, moves him beyond his already constituted

world (on the lowest level, the world of passive synthesis) and allows him to question it.

In other words, by virtue of his freedom, the subject does not just stand in a "this" world

-- a world with no possible alternatives. He can pose the question: "Why this rather than

that?" he can ask why the world is as it appears --i.e., what is the reason for its appearing

as it does?15

Temporality, thus, brings about a double grounding of the ego. It results in the

ego as a center of passive synthesis -- a synthesis which is correlated to its being a center.

It also results in the ego as an active synthesizer. Here, the subject, in its central

egological being, acts out of the freedom which manifests his identity with his ground.

For Husserl, this double grounding allows us to say "passivity [is] always there, always

present as a basis (Grundlage) for freedom ..." It also allows us to assert that the subject,

in his identity with his surpassing ground, surpasses this basis. In Husserl's words, "...

every person is per se autonomous. He freely chooses and decides in a way that

surpasses (überschreitet) the present ..." (Ms. E III 4, p. 23). As a fresh positing, this

surpassing is an enrichment of our passively constituted wrold. On its higher levels, it is

also an enrichment of the results of our already accomplished active synthesis. It is a

 Notes
487

surpassing which constitutes reason in its further development in humanity and its

posited world.

The consequence of this view is that "the development of man as man is

accomplished in autonomy as the development of autonomy -- i.e., as the development of

reason" (Ibid.) This co-development of our reason and freedom -- i.e., "autonomy" --

follows from the fact that both are grounded in the absolute whose temporal aspect is the

nunc stans. The absolute manifests itself in both our freedom and reason; hence, they

both manifst the identity of ground and goal which is inherent in the absolute's self-

temporalization. Human development is, thus, a development towards freedom and

reason which unfolds itself in freedom and reason. They are goals of this development

and are also means for achieving their own realization in us. To cite Husserl again:

Raising himself to the levels of conceptual, judgmental and, finally, phenomenological

reason, man performs his explicating constitution in himself. As rational, he unfolds
(entfaltet) the rational disposition (Vernunftanlage) which is founded (angelegte) in
himself, a disposition which is already developed in its lower stages. He unfolds his
disposition for perfect freedom in his will for perfect freedom, whereby the goal, as
something foreseen but not yet clarified, is already apprehended and guiding. He must
already be in freedom to realize freedom. He must already be in freedom: With a
before-the-fact certainty (Vorgeweissheit) of the goal, in actually free activity, he
deliberates, continually reflects, unfolds his intentions; he sets up his methods and finally
brings about science as a method which is, itself, a free product of reason and also a part
serving it. It serves the reason which can be developed, the reason which is, itself, a
being in process. Such reason functions in freedom (aus Freiheit) for the universal being
in the process of its ongoing constitution (Ms. E III 4, p. 26).

Interpreting Husserl, we can say that just as "reason functions in freedom," so freedom

functions in reason. Thus, we cannot be free and be the slaves of ignorance, of irrational

fears and prejudices. The latter bind us to a given world -- a "this" world -- just as surely
 Notes
488

as impenetrable physical barriers do. To reverse this, reason functions in freedom insofar

as the latter is the very possibility of questioning this world. Freedom is present from the

start as our possibility to surpass the given and, hence, to question why this world --

initially our practical, every day world -- should be given rather than one of its

alternatives.

To move to a deeper level of analysis, we can say that "the universal being"

mentioned by the passage is that of the world which includes both our freedom and

reason. This world is the objectification of Husserl's absolute, and a number of points

can be drawn from this. The first follows from the absolute's status as our ground and

our goal. Since the absolute manifests itself in freedom and reason, both must be present

from the start. In other words, just as we must already be free to move toward freedom,

so from the beginning, reason grounds its own development. As Husserl writes

concerning reason:

From the beginning, man has knowledge of the world; but in possessing this
knowledge, he must first acquire it -- a telos situated at infinity -- through infinite
work. From the beginning, man is a rational being. From the beginning, he has
reason, but first he must, in the course of his history (in the levels of his historical
modes of being, in his historicity), acquire reason. From the beginning, he is
human and must become human (Ms. E III 10, p. 19, 1934).

The phrase, "from the beginning," refers to our ground -- i.e., to the absolute whose self-

objectification gives us both our passively constituted world and the freedom to develop

and explicate its rational structure. The mention of "infinite work" also points to the

absolute -- this time, however, in its being projected forward as our goal. It refers to a

world and a "knowledge of the world" which would correspond to a full manifestation of

the absolute.
 Notes
489

Our second point stems from the fact that the whole of time is required for this

manifestation. This means that the goal is infinitely distant. In Husserl's words:

This teleological ideal, "world," i.e., transcendentally [regarded], this ideal of the
concretely constituting transcendental subjectivity, is not and never will be
temporally given in the sense that a factual, transcendental subjectivity is. It is an
idea, indeed, the idea of an "absolutely perfect" intersubjective community, a
community which does take its origin from us, but one lying completely and
totally at infinity (Ms. E III 1, p. 4, 1931).

As Husserl also expresses this: To both the "streaming, self-confirming world" and its

"changing, transcendental all-subjectivity ..., there corresponds as an absolute pole-idea,

the single absolute understood in a new, super-worldly (überweltlich) ... super-human,

super-transcendental subjective sense. This is the absolute logos ... lying beyond them

[i.e., beyond both the world and its subjects] as an infinitely distant pole" (Ms. E III 4,

pp. 60-61). As already indicated, such an ideal is that of the full objectification of the

absolute which contains "all time and world in every sense." It is an ideal embracing the

rational unity of the world -- i.e., its logos -- and the rational subjects through which this

logos is realized. Both are conceived as fully developed, fully self-confirmed. 16

The intersubjective character of this ideal leads to our third point. It is that I

imply Others in my rationality. Here, the implication is the same as that which we

considered in discussing the notion of horizon. The world horizon implies Others as

correlates to its infinitude. Since this infinitude is also that of the logos manifested by

the world horizon, the same implication can be drawn from the latter. Other, fellow co-

workers in reason are implied by the notion of the logos since its being "situated at

infinity" means that it can only be realized through an open ended plurality of rationally

positing subjects. Such subjects are implied in me insofar as this logos is my

 Notes
490

"specifically human" telos -- is that which I strive to realize as a rational animal -- and

yet is something surpassing my individual powers of atainment. My directedness toward

this telos is, then, my being directed to the open ended community in and through which

it is realized. In other words, to say that "man is already pre-given to himself as man, as

a rational being" is to assume the pre-givenness of "all individual subjects (monads) in a

universal horizon, one in which all the co-monads are always implicit" (Ms. A V 20, p. 3,

1934). This horizon is that of reason disclosing itself in rational subjects. Grounded in

reason, such subjects imply Others in their manifesting reason. This cannot be otherwise,

given that the freedom in which reason functions itself implies a plurality of results (See

above, ).

Husserl calls the "absolute logos," taken as a "polar idea," "the one, the true and

the good." "In the striving which encompasses each and every being," it is "that towards

which all finite being is directed; [it is] that towards which all transcendental subjective

being lives as living being, as the being which constitutes truth" (Ms. E III 4, p. 61,

1934). He ascribes to this telos "a surpassing reality (Ueberrealität), a surpassing truth, a

surpassing actuality, a surpassing in-itselfness which first gives true sense to all relative

finite being and all transcendental monadic being" (Ibid., p. 62). He does not stop here,

but identifies this telos with God. Thus, in another manuscript, we read: "God, himself,

is not the monadic totality. He is rather the entelechy lying within it; this, as the infinite

telos of the development of 'mankind' from absolute reason, as the telos necessarily

regulating monadic being and regulating it from its free decisions" (Ms. A V 22, p. 46,

Jan. 1931).

This identification of God with the logos is not just a feature of Husserl's later

philosophy. As Stephen Strasser has written, "Throughout his whole life, both as a

person and a philosopher, Husserl contended with the problem of God."17 Thus, as early

as 1911, he identifies the "idea" of God with that of a telos of "the most perfect
 Notes
491

[intersubjective] life in which the most perfect world constitutes itself ..." (Ms. F I 14, p.

43). This view of God develops in parallel with the doctrine of the logos. Indeed, some

of the most striking expressions of the latter are theological.

A few examples will bring this out. As we cited Husserl, the logos "is beyond all

being and yet is a level of being." Itself unchanging, it requires individual subjects for its

progressive, "worldly" realization. It must manifest itself as the "reason" of constituting

subjects in order to be present as the constituted, rational unity of the world. A similar

point is made about God. Our striving to constitutively bring about the logos is called

the "absolute will." As Husserl describes the latter:

The universal, absolute will which lives in all the transcendental subjects and which
makes possible the individual, concrete being of the transcendental totality of subjectivity
is the divine will. This, however, presupposes the whole of intersubjectivity -- not that
this precedes this will, not that this will is impossible without this whole (in the way that
the soul, perhaps, presupposes the living body); rather [it presupposes it] as a structural
level without which this will cannot be made concrete (Ms. E III 9, Nov. 5, 1931; HA
XV, 381, italics added).

The relation, here, is teleological. It is one in which God,taken as the logos,

progressively achieves his objective presence by manifesting himself in a plurality of

rationally constituting subjects. In other words, God achieves his worldly presence

through his "promoting a separation [of himself] into a plurality of individual, unitary

consciousnesses, consciousnesses in which a most perfect 'world' constitutes itself" (Ms.

F I 14, p. 42, June, 1911).

This point carries over to God's objective self-understanding. 18 For Husserl,

reason or the logos becomes aware of itself through the activities of individual subjects.

In them, reason exists as "a level of being." Constituting and explicating the results of
 Notes
492

their constitution, such subjects are not separate from reason itself. Because of this, they

confront the objective presence of reason in one another -- i.e., in their explications (See

Ms. E III 4, p. 27). Similarly, God's objective understanding occurs through us "because

we cognizing humans (erkennende Menschen) are, indeed, egos into which the absolute

ego has split itself ..." (Ms. F I 22, p. 22, Nov. 1917). This means that "God ... is the

eternal, unchanging, uniquely singular being who reveals himself in the ego, and this

implies ... He reflects himsellf, He creates an image (Abild) of himself in the form of a

consciousness, an image which, however, is not separated from God himself" (Ms. F I

22, p. 37). Since individuals are not separate from God, they become the means of his

objective self-consciousness:

God, the absolute being, who is inherently unchanging, who, himself, does not become,
in eternal necessity reveals himself in the form of a pure ego. He, thus, externalizes
himself in an infinite series of self-reflections in which He depicts (abildet) himself in
himself as the formations of consciousness. [He does this] first in an obscure form and
then with increasing purity and lack of concealment, ultimately coming to the purest self-
consciousness. In the process of this development, He splits himself, as it were, into a
plurality of finite human subjects. His freedom, the freedom of his absolute self-
determination, becomes their personal freedom (Ms. F I 22, p. 39). 19

The last three quotes are from Husserl's lectures on Fichte's Menschenheitsideal.

As such, they are part of Husserl's exposition of Fichte's position. Yet, in an appendix to

these lectures, Husserl embraces Fichte's doctrine as containing an insight "which is

determined to become a strict theory in the future" (Ms. F I 22, p. 61). With respect to

Husserl's own career, we can say that it forms a leading idea, what Husserl calls a

"guiding star," which motivates his own development.20

In the 1930's, this development culminates in the doctrine of the "total absolute."

In a certain sense, Husserl's doctrines of God, freedom, rationality and horizonality are
 Notes
493

just different ways of expressing the latter. They all ultimately concern the absolute

which, as "total," grounds both time and its sensuous content. Taken as the goal of its

self-manifestation, this absolute is unvarying. 21 Yet, it can also be said to be involved in

change insofar as it grounds the development of subjects, the very subjects in and

through which it achieves its objective presence.22

The temporal component of this absolute is the nunc stans. God, taken as the

"absolute being," is simply the theological expression of the content-filled, pre-objective

nowness by virtue of which each subject is a subject. Thus, as such nowness, God acts in

subjects through the temporal "letting loose" of their acts. He also constitutes the

indivdiual being of subjects by grounding their being as central egos -- i.e., their being as

"midpoints" of content-filled environments. It is in this sense that He can be said to

"split himself" into a pluality of functioning subjects. Here, the original identity between

God and his "reflections" -- i.e., the identity which allows us to say that He is "not

separate" from the latter -- is that of nowness per se. The same point can be made about

the claim God's freedom becomes our "personal freedom." As we said, the root of this

freedom is the surpassing quality of the nowness at the core of our being. This quality

points to the totality of the possibilities pre-objectively present in our anonymous, central

nowness -- the very nowness through which we act.

Our teleological relation to God can also be traced to Husserl's "total absolute," in

particular, to its being our ground and our goal. In the following, somewhat obscure

passage, Husserl expresses this relation as involving a "super-worldly, super-human

pole":

I with the Others. There are [other] egological subjects, and I am these subjects. Ahead
of them, objectifying them and myself, I [am] the ego pole of [objectifying] acts. I live
directed towards the world and directed towards them as worldly [Others]. I [am] with
them as a pole of life, as a co-accomplisher of objectivities, of the [temporal] streaming.
 Notes
494
We [are] never satisfied as goal-directed, as directed in our aiming at relatively finite
goals, as driven beyond such supposedly final goals ... A higher level reflection and a
new aiming (Zielung) beyond all [finite] worldly goals: a free self-determination from
self-understanding and the understanding of humanity, from the understanding of the
absolute as being [present] in all I and we. "Teleology" discovers that God speaks in us.
God speaks in the evidences of the decisions, in the modes of infinity which [course]
through all finite worldliness. I exist -- am on the way (Wege). Where does the path
(Weg) lead? What is my way? My way to the infinite which, at every stage, bears
witness to me that here I am proceeding rightly and, at every false step, witnesses that
here I am proceeding blindly and in error. Here, I am doing my thing -- what is my
concern (Sache); here, I am not. All the right paths lead to myself, but to me through my
co-egos, my co-egos with whom I am inseparately myself, am inseparately this ego.
They lead to God who is nothing other than the pole. The path, beginning with each ego,
proceeds as his path (the ego who begins with me is another ego; just as I, who begin
with him, am another ego); but all these ways lead to God, the same super-worldly
(überweltlich), super-human pole; this, not as separate ways, converging at a point [in the
future], but rather in an indescribable intermingling (Ms. K III 2, pp. 105-06, 1934).

The philosophical doctrine which informs this meditation should be familiar. At its heart

is Husserl's position on the duality of our essence. One part of our essence allows

Husserl to say: "The ego is super-temporal (überzeitlich). It is the pole of the modes of

the egological relations to the temporal" (Ms. E III 2, p. 50, 1934). In other words, when

considered as identical with its ground, "This ego is the only one in an absolute sense. It

does not allow of being meaningfully multiplied. Put more pointedly, it excludes this as

senseless. The implication is: the surpassing being (übersein) of the ego is nothing more

than a constant, streaming constituting. It is a constituting of distinct, graded totalities of

existents (or 'worlds') ..." (Ms. B IV 5, 1932 or 1933; HA XV, 590). Thus, each subject,

identified with the nowness at his core, can claim to objectify both himself and Others.

His action, however, is not his own in any individual sense. As springing from a "super-

temporal" pole, it is rather the action of a common ground. It is the action of the
 Notes
495

absolute which is in every "absolute I and we," this being God conceived of as a "super-

worldly, super-human pole."

As already indicated, the teleology inherent in this pole's temporalization gives a

teleological character to each ego's constitution. Each ego's "path" begins with God and

has God as its ultimate, ideal terminus because of the identity of ground and goal

exhibited by this temporalization. Thus, God can be taken as the content filled nowness

out of which each ego's path is constituted. He can also be conceived as the goal of

egological paths in their "indescribable intermingling." All the "right paths" lead to God

insofar as they work together to objectively exhibit the pre-objective content of such

nowness.

Behind this conclusion is an extremely simple inference. Admitting the identity

of ground and goal, the notion of a common ground leads to that of a common goal. If

the ground is non-temporal in the sense of being beyond time -- überzeitlich -- then so is

the goal. The latter is beyond what can be realized in any finite time. The same

inference holds when we say that the action of the "super-temporal" ground is prior, not

posterior, to the individual lifetimes of finite subjects. Here, we conceive it as "all-

temporally" at work (See above, ). Projected forward as our goal, it unites

humanity "throughout its generations." As we cited Husserl, "the unity of [the ground's]

temporalization, of the objective temporalization of a world in which subjects are co-

objectified, is a unity of the developmental motivation" -- i.e., the motivation to develop

towards this infinitely distant goal (Ms. E III 4, pp. 28-29). The same inference holds

with regard to the content of this goal. If we assert that the ground pre-objectively

expresses the totality of human possibilities, then this is what humanity strives to realize

in its objective development. Thus, to say that "the absolute totality of monads, or the

totality of monadic primordiality, exists only from temporalization" is also to assert that

"the totality of monadic being exists as being-in-horizonality and [that] infinity pertains
 Notes
496

to this -- infinite potentiality, infinite streaming implying the infinities of the stream,

infinity, and iteration of potentialities" (Ms. C I, Sept. 21-22, 1934; HA XV, 670). The

"infinity" refers to the streaming away of the whole of time, an "infinite streaming"

which is required to express the ground of time. The "infinite potentiality" and "iteration

of potentialities" refer to the possibillities inherent in our ground. Their realization is the

goal of the development which increases and actualizes our own potentialities.

To put this in terms of freedom is to say that the freedom inherent in our ground

becomes concretely realized in the development which progressively opens up new ways

of being and behaving for humanity. By this we mean a development which increases

human self-determination by adding to the alternatives available to it. In such a process,

God's freedom can be said to progressively become our own insofar as the possibilities

which form its content begin to define our own possibilities. Freedom, of course, is not

just the choice between alternatives. As action within a teleological context, it has its

specific temporal form. So conceived, its ground is the nowness which inherently

embraces every possible alternative and which, in its self-temporalization, is inherently

directed towards synthesis. The "primal form" of such temporalization -- and, hence of

synthesis -- is that of what-will-be determining what is. This, however, is the form of the

"teleological causality" which is a necessary feature of freedom. If we put this together

with the fact that God is both the ground and the goal of our freedom, the following

claim emerges: when freedom is properly directed -- i.e., when it takes as its task the

explication of its ground -- then "God speaks to us in the evidence of our decisions." In

other words, in expressing its ground, human freedom is a freedom for the manifestation

of God in the progressive work of world-constitution. This, of course, presupposes

another feature of freedom -- that of the rationality evinced in positing and correcting our

positions so that they can come together to synthetically constitute the world. The
 Notes
497

implication, here, is that an improperly directed freedom is one that has cut itself off

from rationality.

Husserl's theological writings are, needless to say, quite controversial. Louis

Dupré, for example, focuses on the fact that God requires individual subjects for his

objective manifestation. He is immanent within them as their ground. Dupré writes:

"No theism, however, could accept a God who is identical with transcendental

subjectivity or even one who needs it as an essential part of himself. From this point of

view, Husserl's later philosophy is perhaps even further removed from a true

transcendence than his earlier. A strange observation in view of the fact that his personal

convictions became increasingly theistic!" ("Husserl's Thoughts on God and Faith," PPR

XXIX, Dec. 1968, p. 212). Stephen Strasser, on the other hand, focuses on the fact that

God is the "entelechy" of the monad-all. He is the infinitely distant goal of monadic

development. For Strasser, "... God is the principle of development who does not

himself develop" ("Das Gottesprobleme in der Spätphilosophie Edmund Husserls,"

Philosophiches Jahrbuch der Gorres-Gesellschaft, vol. 67, 1959, p. 137). His

transcendence is assured since, as an infinitely distant goal, he is never equivalent to

transcendental subjectivity.23 This transcendence is also God's objectivity: "The God

who forms the absolute idea of a pole [or goal] for developing human reason must

possess an objective being, i.e., one independent of subjective reason" (Ibid., p. 139).

From our perspective, we can say that both interpretations are one-sided; that is,

each emphasizes only half of the relation between God and subjects. To focus on God as

the ground of subjects makes Husserl's position appear pantheistic. God is everywhere

subjects are. Similarly, to focus on Husserl's assertions that God is a goal situated "at

infinity" makes his position appear theistic -- this, at least insofar as it emphasizes the

transcendence which most theistic thinkers ascribe to God. The first focus is Dupre's; the

second Strasser's. For Husserl, however, God is both the ground and goal of subjects.
 Notes
498

As such, he is both immanent and transcendent. In neither case, however, is he identical

with subjects. This follows since his transcendence as their goal is also his transcendence

as their ground. As we stressed, the goal is not something which can be realized by any

finite totality of subjects in any finite time. To put this in terms of the ground, we can

say that it, too, surpasses its manifestation by any finitely evolving subjective totality.

The ground's "absolute" status implies that it is capable of grounding, not just the

presently existing totality of subjects, but every possible totality; and this implies that no

finite subjective totality is equivalent to this ground. Thus, when Husserl writes that "the

transcendental totality of subjects is contingent," he means that it is just one of many

possible expressions of its ground. Its contingency is its lack of identity with the latter,

i.e., its not being an objective exprsession which is equivalent to its all-embracing and,

hence, non-contingent ground.

As we earlier noted, contingency embraces both the nature -- the "Sosein" -- and

the existence -- the "Dasein" -- of objectively given subjects. Subjects could be other

than what they are. They could also not be. The second follows because subjects

achieve their objective presence by departing from the nowness which is the "to be" of

their being. In Husserl's words, each subject must say, "Present, I exist in continuous

dying as something present ..." (See above, ). This dying is a dying away of the

moments that make up a life. Our worldly life is contingent since the constituting

nowness which results in its objective Dasein is distinct from this. 24 When, with

Husserl, we identify God with such nowness, he cannot be identified with such Dasein.

§8. The Transformation of the "Problem" of Intersubjectivity

It is easy to see how facticity and teleology come together in Husserl's thought.

Their connection appears in the consideration of our "rationally motivated" positing of

being. Such positing is inherently presumptive -- i.e., factual and fragile. As we cited
 Notes
499

Husserl, "... no rational positing is equivalent to the straightforward assertion: 'the thing

is actual' ..., this, in an "incontrovertible" sense (Ideen I, Biemel ed., p. 339). This

follows from the distinction of the thing and its appearances. Although its "positing is

rationally motivated only through the appearances (the incompletely filled perceptual

sense)," the thing is not the appearances which motivate its positing (Ibid.). As their

"bearer," it is an "empty X." It is a unity established by the forms of unifiability -- i.e.,

the rational, logical forms which are "transcendentally reinterpreted" as the forms of the

connections which obtain between appearances and which permit positing. Thus, the

thesis of their underlying unity -- the X which is not an appearance -- allows us to say

that the thing is the same in different appearances; but it also makes us say that the

appearances, as not equivalent to the thing, can never finally (or "incontrovertibly")

justify the thing's positing.

We can also express this non-equivalence in terms of the fact that appearances are

connected in time. Because of this, the forms of unification are forms of temporal

synthesis; they are forms which establish the unity of a thing as an ongoing, temporal

unity. This is a unity which is actual only in its passage "from present to present." Its

positing as actual thus requires this passage; in other words, it requires its further

appearing. Given this, its actually "can only 'inadequately' appear with an appearance

which is [temporally] finite or limited (Ideen I, Biemel ed., p. 339). In other words, its

"adequate positing requires an infinite process of appearing" (Ibid., p. 351). The

consequence is that only an infinite set of appearances could be equivalent to ongoing

unity of the thing.

With this, the theme of teleology appears; for the presumptiveness or facticitiy of

the posited reality immediately situates rationality as a telos. Conceived as concretely

embodied -- i.e., as part of constituted existence -- reason is not given before constitution

or even, in a final sense, with the presence of the ongoing process of constitution. This
 Notes
500

follows since its incontrovertible givenness as a structure of "true being" requires the

same "infinite process of appearing" that this "being" does. It is, in other words, the

terminus ad quem, not the terminus a quo of the constitutive process. Thus, if reason or

the logos does determine the constitutive process, it must determine it as a goal -- as a

"term towards which" the process proceeds and not as something given in any final sense.

Husserl expresses this point by saying, "Because the rationality which facticitiy

actualizes is not such as the essence demands, in all this there lies a wonderful teleology"

(Ideen I, Biemel ed., p. 139). The essence cannot "demand" such actualization since, as

the rational structure of being, its own incontrovertible givenness is the terminus ad

quem of the factual course of world-constitution.

There is, then, no contradiction in our asserting that the telos or goal of world-

constitution is the concrete embodiment of reason and that, all the same, this

embodiment, at any given time, is controvertible. Viewed in terms of what Husserl calls

"the fact of the world" -- the world as presently posited from already given experience --

one can, indeed, conceive of reason's ending along with this fact. The contingency of the

world -- the possibility that it could be otherwise, that it could, perhaps, even not be -- is

also the contingency of the rationality it embodies. This possibility is also that of the

reduction. The reduction is the suspension of reason taken as the form of the connections

by which we posit a world. So regarded, the reduction's "thought experiment" results in

the suspension of reason -- i.e., its end in the realm of constituted existence.

We can uncover the inner connection between facticity and teleology by turning

to their temporal root. The ultimate principle here is the distinction between the ground

and the grounded. Temporally, this appears as the distinction between the nunc stans and

the successive moments which form its appearances. To derive facticity from this

distinction is to note that from the perspective of such moments, being constantly now is

being constantly new. What remains now constantly occupies a new position within
 Notes
501

successive time. Thus, the nunc stans appears in time as the flowing or streaming now,

the now whose essential characteristic is facticity. As we said, facts are contingent; their

very meaning as facts is that they could be otherwise. In its streaming, the now which

we occupy is constantly other. From the perspective of already constituted time, it is

ever new, ever lapsing into pastness, constantly transcending itself and, hence, constantly

other than itself. As such, it is the pure form of the factual in its contingency.

This contingency affects everything temporally constituted. Even if an entity has

endured through a whole series of past nows, the newness of each coming moment

formally involves the possibilty of its otherness, i.e., its contingency (See

above, ). Such newness, then, is facticity in its temporal root. Its pure temporal

form is that of the nunc stans which appears constantly new, constantly transcending the

positions of the time that is becoming past even as the nunc stans objectifies itself as a

new moment in successive time. As we said, such newness is simply a function of it

remaining constantly now and, thus, of slipping away from any fixing or objectification

of it in a definite temporal position. Given this, we can define the temporal origin of

facticity as the placing and, hence, the escape from place of the nunc stans in successive

time. The nunc stans, of course, is what places itself in time. Its relation to its

successive appearances occurs through its self-temporalization. Insofar as the latter

results in newness, facticity characterizes everything it temporally grounds.

Since the self-temporalization of the nunc stans is inherently teleological, what

we confront here is the grounding of constituted existence in both its facticity and

teleological structure. This point may be put by recalling the reason why the nunc stans

cannot appear in time without surpassing its appearances. The reason is its constant

nowness; but this means that it transcends its momentary appearance because it is always

more than this appearance. It is, per se, the original identity of all its appearances -- i.e.,

of all the momentary presents. As we cited Husserl, "all the temporal modes" -- all the
 Notes
502

moments composing past present and future -- "are already present" within it. It is their

identity as manifesting nowness or original presence. They manifest the latter insofar as

they are appearances of the nunc stans, and they are such appearances through the

nowness of their existence within the nunc stans. Since such original presence is before

the "apartness" of extended time, such moments, thought of as existing within the nunc

stans, can also be thought of as existing in essential coincidence with one another. For

Husserl, they dwell within it "non-independently." Thus, when the nunc stans places

itself in time, its appearance as a temporal moment must manifest this lack of

independence. A moment cannot be in time without transcending itself to appropriate the

future and retain the past. This follows since it only exists as an appearance of the nunc

stans; and the later is an original identity which can only show itself as such through the

dependence of its appearances. To reverse this, we can say that, as dependent, the

momentary appearance can be only by transcending itself and becoming part of a greater

whole.

The result of this is not just the constant self-transcendence of the nunc stans as it

appears in time and, hence, the facticity of the givenness which is constituted through

this process. The argument which proceeds from the original identity of moments to the

dependence of each appearing moment also leads to the teleological structuring of such

givenness. In other words, the dependence of the moment grounds both the "fact of the

world" in its facticity and the inherent movement of this fact towards the "ideal unity" of

the world. It gives us the intentionalities which unify time and structure its process. The

goal of the process is the realization in time of the interdependent totality of moments

which, atemporally, is already present in the nunc stans. We, thus, have the horizonal

structuring of givenness whose ongoing correlate is the horizonal unfolding of the

world's underlying, ideal unity.

 Notes
503

Given that this process is teleological, facticity itself is teleological. For Husserl,

to affirm the facticity of the world -- i.e., its "could have been otherwise" -- is also to

affirm its becoming other than what it is. It is to affirm that the process of such

becoming is teleologically directed to an ideal unity of constituted existence, a unity

which embodies the logos or reason. Since teleology and facticity have the same root,

we can reverse the order of these assertions. We can say that to affirm teleology is also

to affirm facticity. Here, we assert that the world's teleological becoming involves risk.

Its becoming other than what it is could lead to its dissolution. This follows since the

basis of both is, ultimately, the distinction of the constituting from the constituted. It is

the distinction between the nunc stans and the moments which exemplify its original

identity through their multiplicity and mutual dependence. Resulting in newness, this

distinction necessarily involves contingency.

There are a number of ways we can express the significance of the above. The

first is to note that Husserl can ask: "Can reason begin or end in constituted existence?

Can the constitutive process which it has ultimately, spontaneously set at work be in

vain?" He answers these questions by asking: "Can it be otherwise than that reason is

super-temporally and all-temporally at work ...?" (Ms. E III 4, p. 30, 1934), all the while

maintaining that the constituted embodiment of reason -- "the transcendental totality of

subjects" -- is contingent (Ms. K III 12, p. 39, 1935). Its contingency is part of "the fact

of the world," this even though the world's becoming is structured by the reason "at

work" within it. We can also express this theologically, an expression which involves the

issue of our freedom. Husserl can affirm that God is always at work, that God "speaks in

the evidence of the decisions" of individual monads and that He regulates monadic being

through "its free decisions". Yet this does not prevent the possibilty of the withdrawal of

God. Such a withdrawal can be brought about by our turning away from God -- i.e.,

from the "proper paths" leading to him. This is also a possibility of our "free decisions."
 Notes
504

It follows from the nature of our freedom which is our ability to surpass the already

given. As such, it has its temporal root in the surpassing quality of the nunc stans. By

virtue of this grounding, it has its teleological character. The same quality, however, also

gives it its factual, contingency character. Thus, on the one hand, we have the

teleological structuring of freedom which consists of the progressive development of

freedom in freedom, the development which is directed to the increase of our

potentialities. On the other hand, we have the fact that freedom, as the means of its own

development, can turn on itself. Its contingent character signifies that its progressive

advance is not pre-given; it implies that freedom can serve as the means for its regress; it

can suppress itself and even "end" in the realm of constituted existence. *

To speak of the temporal root of this last possibility is to give only half the

picture. Its full context is provided by the formal equivalence of the two aspects of the

absolute: time and content. As an alphabet, the absolute is the totality of contents in a

pre-objective sense. It is such contents before they are synthesized (or "spelled out") into

objective unities. An equivalent assertion holds with regard to the absolute's temporal

aspect. Pre-objectively, the absolute is the totality of moments. As the nunc stans, it is

time's moments before they successively appear in synthesis. The upshot is that time and

content are equally features of the absolute's surpassing quality; indeed, the surpassing

quality of the nunc stans is formally equivalent to that of the alphabet. In both cases, a

determination by the whole -- i.e., by the possibilities of all that can ever be -- surpasses

the determination by the part which has already occurred. As we earlier put this, the

surpassing quality of the absolute follows from its being the possibility of all the

possibilities involving the synthesis of time and content. The absolute, then, may be

called a "fact," but it is not factual in the sense of being contingent. In Husserl's words,

its "fact is not one of the possibilities among which another could just as well be. The

'just as well' concerns only the 'subjective decision' of subjectivity in its state of finite
 Notes
505

clarity and in relation to its factual horizon" (Ms. K III 12, p. 41, 1935). Since the

absolute does embrace every possible factual horizon, it cannot be otherwise. It includes

the possibilities of what is given and what could have been given -- i.e., the alternatives

to the given -- and, hence, is characterized as "lying at the basis of all possibilities" (Ms.

C I, Sept. 21-22, 1934, HA XV, p. 669). It thus includes all the possibilities of our

merely "subjective" decisions.

Such possibilities can be seen as "regulating monadic being ... from its free

decisions" (Ms. A V22, p. 46, 1931). Yet, they can also be seen as including the

posssibility of its collapse. Thus, the possibilities of the absolute regulate our being by

appearing as the possibilities of our finite freedom. They are the possibilities which we

confront in our "finite clarity." One of these possibilities does directly involve the

collapse of monadic being. As experience shows, individuals can choose to end their

objective lives. They can commit suicide. In a certain sense, this possibility corresponds

to that of the reduction's dissolution of the connections which give us our objective

world; though here the dissolution is in fact and not just in thought. As we said, the

reduction's possibility is that of reason's "end in constituted existence." The factual

possibility corresponding to the collective performance of this thought experiment would

be "the possibilty of intersubjective 'suicide'," a possibility which Husserl sees as

included in the open endedness or "infinity" of our "life horizon" (Ms. E III 9, Nov. 13,

1931; HA XV, p. 406). Somewhat prophetically, he notes that this horizon also includes

the possibility "of a universal murder of humanity, the murder of the whole of humanity"

-- this, through the action of humanity itself "if it did possess this power" (Ms. E III 4,

ca. July 1930, p. 9). Today, of course, humanity does possess this power. Within the

possibilities encompassed by its freedom is not just that of turning away from the

absolute -- i.e., of not developing its freedom through its freedom. We are also free to
 Notes
506

engage in our self-destruction. If the absolute lies at the basis of our possibilities and,

hence, of our freedom, it must, therefore, be seen as grounding this terminal possibility.

These considerations lead to a certain transformation of the problem of

intersubjectivity. It becomes a practical problem insofar as we can, through our

practices, eliminate humanity. If we do, our freedom will have eliminated the context in

which self, Others, and the problem of their relations have an applicable sense. This

possibility of the collapse of humanity may be ranged with the possibilities which

involve its regress: the possibilities of freedom suppressing itself. Against these, we

have the possibilities of developing freedom in freedom. These are the possibilities of a

collective advance of humanity, an advance where we constantly expand the possibilities

for human being and behaving. To put this in practical terms is to note that two life-

world attitudes correspond to this dichotomy. On the one side, we have tolerance; on the

other, intolerance.

The common meaning of these terms is clear; but to give them their

phenomenological sense, we must locate their meanings in the context of our discussion.

Their general framework is provided by the notion of the absolute as the possibility of all

possibilities. Corresponding to this, we have the notion of humanity as the means by

which such possibilities are actualized. It is in and through humanity that the absolute

objectifies its possibilities. In other words, its temporal self-constitution is our own.

Another general notion determining the concepts of tolerance and intolerance is that of

the goal of this constitution. In Husserl's words, this goal is "the idea of infinite

perfection, the idea of perfect, individual-subjective being" -- that of a monad -- "within

an infinitely perfect, all embracing intersubjective community." This goal, of course, is

infinitely distant. Since its realization involves the whole of time, we have "its

inconceivability as a completed form, as an actual form of a conceivable (intuitively

imaginable) transcendental existence" (Ms. E III 9, Nov. 5, 1931; HA XV, p. 379).

 Notes
507

Let us explore this last notion further; it will lead us to a corresponding notion of

tolerance. Even though an achieved goal is inconceivable, it can still be understood as a

limit of a process whose stages are conceivable. 25 Here, we may take the limit of a

perfect subjective existence in a perfect community as implying a final fulfillment of

what it means to be human. For Husserl, our advance towards this goal is an advance

towards our "true being." It is an advance, we can say, which increases the fullness of

our being. Such fullness does not mean completion in a static sense. It does not mean,

for example, that the characteristics which are observed to pertain to humanity are to be

regarded as completely filling out the conception of being human. Since we are dealing

with a goal that is "inconceivable as a completed form," such fullness is to be understood

in terms of an indefinitely extended horizon involving anticipation and fulfillment. Thus,

fullness as fulfillment is a provisional term in which every human accomplishment is

taken as fulfilling the notion of being human and also as an anticipation of further

potentialities for being human. According to such a conception, we can, for example,

say that the accomplishment of human speech opens up a whole range of further

possibilities -- civil society, commerce, etc. -- to the possibility of being actualized. Each

of these, when actualized (or fulfilled) in some particular way, points, in anticipation, to

further potentialities. As is obvious, "fullness" represents a teleological ideal. It is a goal

towards which this horizonally structured process of anticipation and fulfillment tends. It

is also that which we ourselves bring about through our own actions. As we said, the

absolute's self-constitution is our self-constitution. This means that our goal is nothing

less than the synthetic, collective actualization of all the human possibilities inherent in

the absolute. This can also be put by saying that the full self-objectification of the

absolute as an "all embracing intersubjective community" is, itself, the goal which the

intersubjective community strives to realize.

 Notes
508

With this, we return to the conclusion that an individual's recognition of Others

involves a recognition of the absolute. We can express this in terms of the distinction we

started with: that between the ground and the grounded. Ontologically, this is the

distinction between being as such and individual beings. The former can be defined

phenomenologically as the totality of possibilities, a totality which is self-realizing. My

ontological status as a being -- my finitude -- is shown by the fact that I can actualize one

possibility of my being, i.e., can engage in a specific course of action, only by neglecting

other possibilities. Because of this, my finitude implies a plurality when it is viewed in a

teleological framework pointing to the harmonious realization of all possibilities. Given

this finitude, it is only through a plurality of subjects that possibilities can be collectively

actualized. The conclusion, here, is that my recognition of Others and their possibilities

is implicit in my recognition of the absolute as a teleological goal. Seen in terms of this

goal, my finitude situates me in a self-acknowledged being with Others. What we have,

then, is "the formation according to goals [and, hence, according to a "highest goal"] of

human being as social, as being-along-with-one-another (Miteinandersein) ..." (Ms. A V

24, p. 3, fall 1934).

The equivalence of ground and goal allows us to make the same point about the

ground. Our recognition of Others and their possibilities is also a recognition of the

absolute taken as "lying at the basis of all possibilities." This point follows from the

arguments of our previous chapter where we concluded that the presence of Others is a

re-presentation of the absolute -- i.e., of the possibilities inherent in the latter. Since the

ground always contains more than the possibilities of the given existent which is its

particular re-presentation, this existent always implies more than itself. It re-presents the

multiple possibilities of its ground by implying what could be co-grounded. In Husserl's

words: "The fact that something is specifies, at any given time, a realm of co-

possibilities, a totality of that which can or cannot coexist with it" (Ms. E III 2, p. 2,
 Notes
509

1921). This means that "beginning with the 'contingency' of the temporal position and of

the ego" occupying this position, a totality of co-possible egos can always be derived.

The totality is "one which the ego, varying its temporal position, itself traces it." Thus,

we can vary the "now" of our here. We can imagine that we are here at an earlier or later

time. We can, correspondingly, vary the "here" of our now, i.e., position our now in a

different "here" by imagining that we are now "there." The result is a view of the

horizon of the possibilities of being now -- i.e., being a temporal center of a particular,

content-filled environment (Ms. K III 2, p. 44, Oct. 10, 1935). As we said, such

possibilities form the elements of our self-transcending intentions. They allow me to

transcend my particular modes of self-consciousness and intend those of my Others. The

Others whom I do recognize as embodying these alternate possibilities objectively re-

present my ground in its surpassing quality. Their recognition is correlated my

recognition of this ground insofar as the first recognition is the secondary objective

component.

Once again the ultimate principle is the distinction between being and beings. An

individual being is such -- i.e., is a definitely given "what" -- by embodying one of the

possibilities whose totality points to being itself. The fact that it is not being itself makes

it contingent. Its contingency, in other words, points back to being itself as the totality of

possibilities, the very totality in terms of which it can be said to be contingent. Thus, as

we cited Husserl: "Contingency includes in itself a horizon of possibilities in which what

is contingent signifies one of the possibilities, the very one which actually obtained" (Ms.

C I, Sept. 21-22, 1934; HA XV, p. 670). An individual entity includes this horizon "in

itself" insofar as its presence re-presents its ground. The independence of the latter -- the

fact that, as all-embracing, it could just as well have grounded something else -- is re-

presented by the horizon of alternative possibilities.

 Notes
510

Summing up, we can say that the general framework for the notion of tolerance is

one in which the absolute is both the ground and the goal of my recognition of Others.

The possibilities inherent in it as a ground become explicit in its self-constitution as a

perfect intersubjective community. Thus, it does not just provide me with my self-

transcending intentions; it also sets the goal of these intentions. Ultimately, they can

only be satisfied in a community which perfectly embodies the ideal of "fullness."

Defined in these terms, the notion of tolerance appears as a life-world attitude

which is required for progress towards this goal. On the most basic level, it is an

openness to the possibilities inherent in my ground and goal. Specifically, it is an

openness to the possibilities of the fullness of human being, i.e., to the harmonious

realization of all the possibilities involved in such being. Husserl, in this context, speaks

of the "communalization" of the ideals of being human. This involves the mutual

affirmation of such ideals. I affirm that the Other's ideals are "mine" and he does the

same with regard to my own, though we both do this in a "mediate fashion." Thus, as

Husserl writes, I affirm "his ideals as his, as ideals which I must affirm in him, just as he

must affirm my ideals -- not, indeed, as his ideals of life but as the ideals of my being

and life" (Ms. E III 1, p. 7, 1931). The same point is made with regard to different

societies. Societies are "not egotistical" -- i.e., not intolerant -- if they can affirm one

another's "particular goals and particular accomplishments" (Ms. A V 24, p. 4, fall 1934).

Full toleance is termed "love" -- Liebe. It is an "ideal case" of a "complete

harmony," a case where I can say of the Other: "his existence, his life is as if it were

mine." The "as if" signifies that love is an affirmation of the Other's existence in the

Other. As the opposite of egotism, it is not an identity of the lover and the beloved.

Rather, "it is a particular manner of empathetic congruence" (Ms. E III 2, p. 19, Jan. 1,

1935, italics added). Husserl calls a society formed from such love relationships a "love

society" -- Liebesgemeinschaft. This is another description of the telos of human

 Notes
511

development, one involving a "perfect individual-subjective" existence within a "perfect

intersubjective community." Conceived according to the increase of love relations, the

realization of this telos (or limit) would be a community in which the intentions of

empathy were fully realized. Each would affirm his Others' existence as if it were his

own, and the objective behavior of his Others would never disappoint him. This means

that within his own primordiality he would find the possibilities which Others objectively

realize; conversely, his own accomplishments would be recognized by his fellows. Their

ideals and goals would be affirmed by him as his own, and vice versa. Such affirmation

would, of course, be mediate. It would consist in an affirmation of the possibilities

inherent in himself whose realization stands not as his own but as another's goal.

For Husserl, the "love" animating such a community "is infinite, absolute and

universal ..." (Ms. E III 4, p. 20, July 1930). Traced to its roots, it is a love of the

absolute conceived as the totality of subjective possibilities. The early lectures on Fichte

interpret this theologically. Human love, is a "desire for the eternal" -- i.e., for God as

He is present in my neighbors (See Ms. F I 22, pp. 42, 53-54, Nov. 1917). It is actually a

love for "the eternal, unchanging, uniquely singular being who reveals himself in the

ego" (Ibid., p. 39). Insofar as God is the "entelechy" or goal of the monad-all, his

presence appears in my and my neighbor's goals. Collectively, his presence is in the goal

of "fullness." He is also, of course, the ground of our progress towards this goal. Here,

his presence is manifested in my own and my Others' freedom. God's "freedom, the

freedom of his absolute self-determination, becomes their personal freedom" -- this, in

their grounding their worldly being in multiple possibilities (Ibid.). Such freedom, as we

noted at the end of our last chapter, is the ultimate object of the transfer of selfhood

whereby I take the Other as a subject like myself. It is the sine qua non of an empathetic

as opposd to an egotistical relationship. Granting this, the Liebesgemeinschaft in which

empathy was fully satisfied would also be a society in which God was "all in all." At this
 Notes
512

intuitively inconceivable limit, He would exhibit his presence in all intersubjetive

relations.

Since this exhibition involves the harmonious realization of possibilities, our

remarks on tolerance should not be construed as implying that it is a concept devoid of

all definite content. The notion of "proper ways" leading to God implies that there are

improper ways. Thus, tolerance is not an open acceptance of every possibility of human

behavior -- this, regardless of its effect on Others. Tolerance is directed to maximizing

the collective realization, the synthetic union of human possibilities. As such, only those

possibilities which do not permanently exclude other possibilities fall within its purview.

This means that, as a positive, practical ideal, it embaces as values to be realized only

certain possibilities: those which permit the actualization of further possibilities within

the horizon of being human. Those whose actualization results in harm, in the narrowing

of the potentiality for humanity in individuals, it forbids as a negative command. If it did

not forbid them, it would contradict itself. It would include both teleological progression

and its opposite. It would be directed to the goal of fullness of human being and, at the

same time, embrace actions contrary to this goal's realization. If the former lead to God,

the latter lead away; they lead not to his presence, but to his withdrawal.

A few common examples will make this clear. Tolerance, understood negatively

as a prohibition -- ultimately, as a prohibition of intolerance -- forbids lying and theft.

The first, to the point that it is collectively actualized, undermines the possibility of

speech to communicate verifiable information. Thus, lying undermines those human

possibilities, such as civil society, which presuppose this possibility. Theft, when

collectively actualized, has a similar effect on the possibility of possession and, hence, on

the possibilities, such as commerce, springing from this. Insofar as lying and theft cut

off such possibilities, they result in a narrowing of human potentialities and are actually

acts of intolerance. Tolerance, however, is directed to the expansion of our potentialities.

 Notes
513

Because of this, it is never a static notion. Within the schema of anticipation and

fulfillment, its structure at any given time is determined by the stage of our advance

towards fullness of being.26

Intolerance can be defined as the opposite of tolerance. It is an attitude which

promotes not progress towards our "ought to be," but rather regress. Its result is the

reduction of the possibilities actually available to us. Thus, the thief attempts to limit the

possibilities of possession to himself, cutting them off from Others. Of course, a thief

cannot remain a thief and succeed in this attempt. His action presupposes that Others

will continue to possess the goods he wants, that the possibilities of possession can

always be reinstanted. The case is quite different with intolerance in its extreme form.

Here, it appears as radical evil: the evil that strikes at the root of things. The effect of

this evil is such that it cannot be made good again; that is to say, its effect is a possibility

which is permanently foreclosed to us. Applied to the human community, its result, then,

is the permanent closing off of the possibilities of being human. Such evil may take the

form of the destruction of the historical records of a particular society; it may proceed

beyond this and include the permanent suppression of the society's native language; a

further expression of it would be the wholesale destruction of the members of the society

-- all these actions being intended to eliminate the possibilities of being and behaving

which its members manifest. As the history of our century indicates, radical evil is a

factually given, human possibility. It has actually obtained in our century's destruction of

cultures -- those, e.g., of Turkish Armenians and Eastern European Jews. It most

extreme form would be humanity's wholesale destruction through nuclear war. It would

be Husserl's "intersubjective suicide," i.e., the "murder of the whole of humanity." This

could be accomplished by a humanity possessing a sufficient stockpile of nuclear

weapons, a humanity divided into two competing systems, each seeking the elimination

of the possibilities expressed by its rival.

 Notes
514

As the experience of our century indicates, such exemplary evil exists in a

continuum with the more common, everyday forms of intoleance: intolerance expressed

as a negative attitude towards some particular ethical or cultural group. As witnessed by

our age, intolerance of an ethnic group can precede their destruction. It contains the

germ of radical evil insofar as it manifests the attitude that Others who think and act in a

certain way are not to be accounted as genuinely human. 27 With this attitude, not just

my relation to these Others, but also my tie to the ground of these relations is partially

severed. Such Others are not recognized as human subjects "like myself" -- which

signifies that I do not recognize the absolute as implicitly containing both my

possibilities and those of the group I cannot tolerate. Now, my self-transcending

intentions are formed from such possibilities. In empathy, I grasp my primordiality as if

it were another's. I re-present it as if it received a different objective expression. Thus,

the objective presence of the Other is taken as a re-presentation of an original presence --

that of the absolute with its surpassing possibilities. When empathy fails, the ground

seems to be no longer available for the action of re-presentation. Insofar as this action is

based on its presence, we can speak of intolerance as a sign of its absence -- i.e., as

signifying the withdrawal of the ground.

The same point can be made about the absolute taken as a goal of human fullness.

Intolerance is an attempt to banish the striving towards this goal. It directs itself against

already realized human possibilities or against possibilities which are present as

anticipations springing from these. It, thus, typically takes the form of attempting to

narrow or at least hold static the meaning of being human. In the former case, it attempts

an actual regress from the ideal of human fullness. In the latter, its attempt is to

eliminate the teleological action of this ideal as a goal. Once again, we can speak of a

partial severing of our tie with the absolute. Coincident with our non-recognition of the
 Notes
515

human possibilities manifested by Others is a non-recognition of the absolute. Its

presence in the form of an animating teleological goal becomes withdrawn.

This withdrawal of the absolute, as both our ground and goal, can, of course, be

expressed theologically as the withdrawal of God. As long as we exist, it remains a

partial withdrawal. A complete withdrawal would be occasioned only by the extreme of

intolerance, this being the lack of recognition which would result in our "intersubjective

suicide."

The question we face in considering the withdrawal brought about by radical evil

is that of the condition for its possibility. What, phenomenologically speaking, is its

ultimate, "metaphysical" ground.28 An answer may be found in turning to the principle

we started with: the distinction of the ground and the grounded. Expressed as the

ontological difference between being and beings, this is a principle which is essential to

the inner connection between facticity and teleology. The dependence of the moment

which underlies facticity and teleology is, itself, an elementary expression of this

difference. At a higher level, the difference appears in my finitude. My finitude is my

not being equivalent to being itself -- i.e., my not being the self-actualizing totality of

possibilities. It is shown by my "could have been otherwise" -- my factual contingency

in embodying one possibility rather than another. As we cited Husserl, this contingency

attaches to my "subjective decisions," in my "finite clarity," to realize myself as a

specific this. My finitude is, thus, concretely shown by the fact that I can permanently

close off possibilities for myself. Indeed, I must since I can actualize one possibility of

being only by neglecting other possibilities. As we said, my recognition of the absolute

as a teleological goal -- one which points to the collective, harmonious realization of all

possibilities -- demands my recognition of Others and their possibilities. My finitude,

when seen in terms of this goal, situates me in a self-acknowledged being with my

Others.
 Notes
516

Turning to our collective being, ontological difference reappears in our finitude.

Conceived as the totality of factually given subjects, we do not express the totality of

human possibilities. We are not the absolute considered as a telos since the latter

requires the whole of time to achieve its complete factual presence. Thus, the collective

being of presently given subjects is itself something finite. It has its "could have been

otherwise," which means, in Husserl's words, "the transcendental totality of subjects is

contingent." As not yet expressing the totality of possibilities, its subjective decisions

regarding its own development remain contingent. Its finitude is shown by the fact that it

can through its collective actions, permanently foreclose possibilities. In other words,

like the individual, it is finite in the sense that it can, through its actions, close off

possibilities for itself; though, unlike the individual, this cannot be made up by an appeal

to a greater collectivity -- i.e., Others. This follows because it, itself, is this collectivity.

Radical evil is this permanent foreclosure of possibilities. Thus, radical evil -- or

the potentiality for such -- is itself the mark of the collective finitude of humanity. It is

also, we can say, the phenomenological sign that human beings do not equal being itself.

The ontological distinction between the two is shown by the fact that the possibilities

present in the absolute can be permanently lost to humanity. If the ontological difference

did not obtain, humanity could find within itself the potentiality to make good again all

those losses which have made its history calamitous. That it cannot signifies that it is not

its ground, that it can partially or even, in an ultimate catastrophy, be totally cut off from

its ground.

These possibilities of withdrawal are inherent in the absolute conceived as the

entirety of possibilities. It itself grounds radical evil by including even the possibility of

permanently foreclosing possibilities. Thus, radical evil is a constant human possibility.

The attempt to completely foreclose it would involve the very foreclosing of possibilities

which it itself is. It would rather be like attempting to overcome evil by engaging in it in
 Notes
517

a radical sense. The fruitlessness of this attempt can be seen in the fact that the very

possibility of such evil is also that of our finitude. It is inherent in the ontological

distinction and, thus, in the transcendence of being itself -- i.e., our ground and our goal

-- from ourselves. In other words, it is because the absolute itself, through its necessarily

finite self-objectifications, grounds the distinction between being and beings that radical

evil is inherent in the possibilities open to ourselves as finite beings. 29

Another way to express this is in terms of our freedom. Freedom also

presupposes the ontological difference since, in its most general sense, it is the surpassing

of particular beings by being itself. Thus, freedom presupposes the presence of my

ground taken as the totality of possibilities, a totality which I recognize as presenting

possibilities which surpass those embodied in my given "this." I am free to the point that

I can surpass such given being in my choice between alternate possibilities for its

development. These possibilities form the content of my freedom; they are inherent in

the openness -- the "alphabet" -- of my ground. Projected forward, they become the

openness of my goal. The same thing may be said about the temporal presence of my

ground -- i.e., its presence as the nunc stans. Here, the ontological difference shows

itself in the distinction between my ground's constant nowness and the moments which

form its appearances. Thus, temporally speaking, the surpassing quality of freedom is a

function of the "letting loose" of new acts from this constant nowness. It is a function of

my self-transcendence as I remain constantly now while my objective being departs in

time. Such acts embody the possibilities which are inherent in my pre-objective

nowness, possibilities which surpass those which I have already realized. They can,

however, also contradict the latter. What has been "let loose" can be permanently lost

insofar as what I now bring forth does not fulfill it, but rather closes off its anticipated

horizon.
 Notes
518

If my freedom stems from my coincidence with my ground, so does my empathy.

The content of my freedom, which is that of the presence of my ground, is also the

content of my empathy. This content gives me the transcending intentions which are

essential for the recognition of the Other and his possibilities; it allows me to affirm as

"mine" possibilities which are objectively manifested not in me, but in my Other and his

animating nowness. At its heart, such recognition transfers to the Other the openness, the

freedom, which I find in my own primordiality. So regarded, freedom is essential for the

acts of recognition which result in the web of social relationships. Yet the openness of

freedom also includes the possibility of denying such relationships -- this, through the

practice of intolerance. Thus, among the possibilities of freedom is that of limiting

freedom. Our freedom includes the possibility of permanently foreclosing the

possibilities of being and behaving which once were within the compass of freedom.

Here, the fact that we can permanently limit our freedom, that we can foreclose the

possibilities that form its content shows that we are, as constituted entities, not our own

ground. The intolerance which does not recognize the Other and his possibilities, which,

in fact, suppresses the latter results, as we said, in the withdrawal of the ground. This is

also the withdrawal of our freedom insofar as it is the closing off of the possibilities

which form its content. That we are capable of this points once again to the distinction

of being and beings. Our freedom presupposes our finitude -- our status as a being --

since it exists in the surpassing of this. As such, it presupposes finitude's contingency --

i.e., the fact that the possibilities it embodies can not be and, hence, can be permanently

lost to us as finite beings.

If we ask how freedom can deny freedom without at the same time affirming

itself, we come to another expression of the ontological difference. It appears as the

duality of our essence -- i.e., in the fact that we are and are not the ground of our finite

being. In our identity with the openness of this ground, we can exercise the freedom
 Notes
519

which results in its denial. In our otherness from the ground -- i.e., in our status as finite,

constituted realities, the freedom which we have abandoned can be permanently lost to

us. The openness of the possibilities from which we choose to constitute our "this" can,

in other words, involve a "this" which is closed to such possibilities. It can involve a

"this" which takes itself as already manifesting the totality of possibilities and, thus,

denies the possibility of recognizing alternate ways of being and behaving. Here,

finitude takes itself as infinitude. We deny the ontological difference which is at the

heart of our freedom, i.e., of our ability, qua finite, to surpass ourselves. Now, the

possibility of taking up this stance, which is essentially solipsistic or "egotistical," is

always open to us. In our primordiality, the ontological difference does not yet exist.

Thus, each ego, with an eye to this primordiality, can claim to be "unique." Each can

assert, "I am the only one". It can deny its status as a being by asserting that it is an

"ego ... which does not allow of pluralization in any meaningful sense, which excludes

this as senseless ..." (Ms. B IV 5, 1932 or 1933; HA XV, p. 590). Because of this,

egotistical or intolerant behavior is always possible. Since, in our freedom, there is a

coincidence between ourselves and our ground, we can always confuse the two sides of

our essence -- i.e., our finitude with our infinitude. Our finitude is our existence as a

being -- a "this" -- in the world. Thus, the collapse of the ontological difference in favor

of our finitude is actually the withdrawal of the surpassing quality of infinitude from our

present, worldly being. It is our being fixed in a "this-world" whose horizons have been

emptied of all references to the new.

Of course, as long as we continue to be present, we continue, temporally

speaking, to surpass ourselves. The teleology which is inherent in our temporality

continues its action. Yet its action is not such that it can avail itself of the new. The

possibilities of the whole of time are suppressed by the very freedom they engender.

Thus, our self-surpassing in the form of availing ourselves of further moments of

 Notes
520

presence becomes a mere repetition: a simple re-actualization of already acknowledged

possibilities.30

An important corollary of the foregoing appears when we recall that, for Husserl,

reason functions out of freedom; this, just as much as freedom, in its further

development, functions from reason. This implies that when we speak of a regress, it is

one that includes both freedom and reason. Reason functions "out of freedom" (aus

Freiheit) since its action is that of active synthesis. It involves choice, which means that

the development of humanity towards reason is itself a matter of choice. Thus, just as we

can choose to undermine freedom, we can stop the advance of reason. We can do so by

suppressing the question of reason: "Why this rather than that?" To pose this question is

to call to mind alternate possibilities of being, behaving and thinking. As such, the

suppression of the question pertains to intolerance. When the "that" of the alternate

possibility exists in some social or racial group and yet is not recognized as pertaining to

humanity, what we have is a situation where humanity is set in opposition -- in

contradiction -- to itself. If the conflict is irremediable, the action of reason, which is

that of synthesis, no longer has an effect in human affairs. In a certain sense, it has

reached an "end in constituted existence."

Our remarks on freedom allow us to specify in a practical and moral way our

relation to the being of beings. The latter is our ground, and its full objectification is our

goal. Thus, as our ground, it manifests itself in our ability to be free (and, hence, in our

ability to pose the question of reason). As our goal, it takes the form of the perfect

intersubjective community -- Husserl's Liebesgemeinschaft. In the later, we recognize

each other as embodying the mutually supporting possibilities inherent in our rational

freedom. Now, the ground can never be fully manifest; which means that, as our goal, it

can never be completely realized. This follows from the ontological difference. That

being is not beings signifies that being per se can never be reified; it can never be
 Notes
521

considered a permanent human possession like some real physical or psychological

feature. Teleologically conceived, its full objectification always remains transcendent to

us; it is present only as a goal directing our lives. This goal is an inherent one insofar as

its progressive realization is through the actualization of our possibilities. It embodies

reason in the sense that it is rationally explicable in terms of the progressive synthesis of

such interdependent possibilities.

In the last two features, it is rather like Aristotle's final cause. For Aristotle, the

full grown tree is the goal which the sapling attempts to realize through its biological

activities. The tree rationally combines and expresses the possibilities inherent in the

sapling. What sets apart Husserl's conception of the goal from the Aristotelean with its

biological references is, of course, the ontological difference. This difference does not

just set this goal at infinity, it also transforms the nature of its realization. Expressed as

freedom, the difference signifies a lack of real necessity in the absolute taken as our

ought-to-be. Inherently, the sapling ought to be a tree. Indeed, it can only become this

when the biological conditions for its development are present. As such, this goal is part

of its factually given nature. We, however, need not manifest the absolute. This follows

because the latter can be realized only through the openness of our freedom. Now, an

inherent, rationally explicable goal, which is realized through free activity, is a value. As

such, our practical and moral relationship to the absolute is a relation to value. Here, the

doctrine of the absolute turns into a doctrine of value. It becomes a theory which

grounds the notion of value by showing how it is rooted in the structure of what is.

By the latter we mean the structure of being in its relation to beings. When we

speak about value, our focus is not on what is in the sense of what is factually given. It is

on what ought to be realized through our freedom. For Husserl, we may note, values

form the context in which the question of the ground first arises. He writes: "It is not

facticity per se, but facticity as the source of possible and actual values advancing to
 Notes
522

infinity which first compels the question of the 'ground' -- which naturally does not have

the sense of a thinglike, causal source" (Ideen I, Biemel ed., p. 139). The ground is not

"thinglike" -- is not a cause as something already existing in nature -- because it, itself, is

not factually given. As the being of beings -- i.e., as lying at the basis of all possibilities,

all relativities, all contingencies -- it is, rather, what grounds nature's facticity. When we

are compelled to raise its question, it is initially in response to prior questions, questions

concerning why the facts permit the realization of values, e.g., those of rationality and

culture (See Ibid.). For Husserl, the general answer to these qustions is that the ground

must be teleologically conceived. As such, it is present to us in the very values which

raise its question. Thus, as already indicated, its practical, moral relation to us is that of

the values or goals which we freely attempt to realize. Husserl's mention of "possible

and actual values advancing to infinity" simply points to the ground's all embracing

character, one which finds expression in the multiplicity of ideals included in the

Liebesgemeinschaft. The ontological distinction which is based on this all embracing

character of being itself signifies that value remains value. It is something that factually

given subjects can only partially manifset. Thus, the absolute, by virtue of its distinction

from individual beings, must always remain transcendent as a value, i.e., as a goal

directing the lives of finite subjects.

The Krisis reflects on the fact that the direction it provides can be lost. Husserl's

much quoted remark, "the dream is over," can be taken as referring to the dream of

inevitable human progress. Since the absolute both draws humanity to itself and includes

the possibility of humanity's turning away and losing its way, this dream is rightly over.

In its stead, we have the awakening of self-responsibility. For Husserl, "A human being

is a human being in his self-responsibility." The same holds for the human community

(Ms. E III 9, p. 81, 1933). The later has, in fact, an all embracing responsibility. Its

"self-responsibility has its domain in the totality of being, the totality of life and ... the
 Notes
523

totality of the life-world" (Ibid., p. 82). The negative side of this is that the human

community can, through its actions, cause a breakdown in the life-world. It can disrupt

the web of social relationships which form the life-world's framework. Its responsibility

for the totality of being and life is not just a responsibility for this intersubjective life-

world. It is, as already indicated, a responsibility for the absolute ground of such

totalities. Our own actions are the means by which this ground becomes manifest as the

totality of what is. In other words, the world which progressively manifests the absolute

through its indefinitely extended horizons is something realized through our own

syntheses. Having grounded us, i.e., having given us our basis in passive synthesis, the

absolute exists "regulating [our monadic being] from its free decisions" -- i.e., through its

processes of active synthesis. Its presence, then, is a matter of our taking responsibility

for what we freely choose to value, to constitute and accomplish. This responsibility for

the ground is a self-responsibility since the ground, with its multiple possibilities and

original presence, forms the core of our selfhood. It is the freedom which allows us to

take responsibility. As a corollary, we may add that an "awake" humanity, in its

awareness that progress is not inevitable, knows that evil and intolerance can never be

permanently overcome. They can only be continually and responsibly combated.

We may end by remarking on how the problem of intersubjectivity is here

transformed. Intersubjectivity is not a given, fixed feature of reality. Considered as

something unchanging, it is an ought-to-be, a value. As factually real, it is not fixed but

is in progressive development, a development which includes the possibility of

regression. As we have seen, to approach the absolute in teleological and practical terms

is to approach it under the aspect of value. This means taking a moral stance with regard

to the possibilities which are included in our humanity. It also signifies a recognition of

our responsibilities with regard to these possibilities; and this implies a recognition of the

possibility of permanent loss through our actions. Regarded in these terms, the problem
 Notes
524

of intersubjectivity becomes eminently practical, one which involves both individual and

collective self-responsibility. To view the ground of intersubjectivity as a value is to

value as well those actions of ours which preserve a relation to this ground. It is to value

them as involved in the realization of the ought-to-be -- the value -- of intersubjectivity.

Thus, intersubjectivity (the world of shared meanings) is not something which we first

must theoretically establish in order, then, to act. In its character as our ought-to-be, i.e.,

as the ideal of a shared human fullness, it is given to us as a possibility, a possibility

which we ourselves must realize through our actions. In this regard, the problem of

intersubjectivity is transformed into that of caring for the factually given (and, hence,

fragile) web of human relations. It is a web, a nexus, into which we are born and which

we ourselves must maintain and expand. Our finitude, then acknowledged, both

necessitates this web and finds its moral expression within it. This expression points

both to Others in their finitude and to the infinitude lying within them waiting to be

expressed.
 Notes
525

ENDNOTES

NOTES TO: 'INTRODUCTION'

1. Fink's remarks are worth quoting at some length. He writes: "In his late

manuscripts, which were written after Cartesianische Meditationen, Husserl ... sees the

difficulty involved in simply transposing structures of the intramundane multiplicity of

subjects into the transcendental realm. ... he arrives at the curious idea of a primal ego,

of a primal subjectivity which is prior to the distinction between the primordial

subjectivity and the transcendental subjectivity of other monads. He seems to try, to

some extent, to withdraw the plurality from the dimension of the transcendental ... In the

same context, Husserl also tries to circumvent the difference between essence and fact by

going back to the primal facticity of transcendental life which first constitutes possibility

and thereby variations and -- as an objectification (Vergegenständlichung) of variational

multiplicities -- also constitutes essence. According to Husserl's ideas in these very late

manuscripts, there is a primal life which is neither one nor many, neither factual nor

essential; rather it is the ultimate ground of all these distinctions: a transcendental primal

life which turns itself into a plurality and which produces in itself the differentiation into

fact and essence" ("Discussion -- Comments by Eugen Fink on Alred Schultz's Essay,

'The Problem fo Transcendental Intersubjectivity in Husserl'," Alfred Schutz, Collected

Papers III, ed. I Schutz, Phaenomenologica, No. 22, The Hague, 1966, p. 86). Here, I

must express my gratitude to Dr. Rudolph Bernett of the Husserl Archives in Louvain for

providing me with Fink's indices to the late manuscripts. Dr. Bernett's assistance in

tracking down the manuscripts referred to by Fink was an example of genuine

collegiality.
 Notes
526

2. This is the position of Husserl's Logical Investigations. See, e.g.,

Logische Untersuchungen, 5th ed., 3 Vols. (Tübingen, 1968), I, 15, 228, II/1, 90, 94f.

3. See also Ideen I, Biemel ed., p. 115. On the resulting facticity (or

contingency) of the world and its constitution see Iso Kern, Husserl und Kant,

Phaenomenologica, No. 16 (The Hague, 1964), pp. 293 ff.

4. For a summary of these arguments as they are presented in the Logical

Investigations, see J. R. Mensch, The Question of Being in Husserl's Logical

Investigations, Phaenomenologica, No. 81 (The Hague, 1981), pp. 9-33.

5. The reference to the "Prolegomena" which follows this statement is to the

arguments establishing the priority of epistemology. In the Ideen, the resulting

correlation of being to knowability is expressed as follows: "To every object that truly

is, there corresponds (in the a priori of unconditioned essential generality) the idea of a

possible consciousness in which the object itself can be grasped originally and perfectly

adequately. Conversely, if this possibility is guaranteed, eo ipso the object is one that

truly is" (Ideen I, Biemel ed., p. 349).

6. See LU, 1st ed., 2 Vols. (Halle a. S., 1900-1901), II, 249-51, 284, On the

causal determination of the knowing subject, see Ibid., II, 332, 356. The second edition

of the Investigations omits or rewrites these passages in an attempt to make the work's

positions consistent with those of Ideen I which appeared the same year, 1913.

7. One may compare this to the Investigations' position: "What is 'inside' of

consciousness just as what is 'outside' of consciousness is considered as real by us. What

 Notes
527

is real is the individual with all its characteristics: it is a here and now. For us,

temporality is sufficient as a characteristic feature of reality" (LU, Tüb. ed., II/1, 123).

8. This doctrine of the equivalence of objective and universal validity was

accepted by Husserl from a very early period. In the Investigations, it is used to establish

the "ideal" (or "one-in-many") character of the content of knowledge. Such a content

was considered to be ideal insofar as it was the one thing necessarily instantiated in all

valid judgments concerning the object. Husserl writse: "And just as the being or validity

of universals, as in other cases, is equivalent to ideal possibilities -- namely, in respect to

the possible being of empirical instances which fall under these universals, so we say the

same thing here. The assertions, 'the truth is valid,' and, 'there are thinking creatures

possible whose judgments comprehend the relevant contents of meaning,' are equivalent"

LU, Tüb. ed., I, 129). The latter possibility -- i.e., that of the "thinking creatures" -- is in

the Investigations, with its realist stance, simply taken for granted. As such, the securing

of the possibility of objective knowledge is not thought of as embracing the task of

securing the possibility of Others. This last, as we note in our text, first becomes an issue

with the adoption of the reduction and the idealism this entails.

9. This "depth of life" involves for Husserl the thought of a "primal ego." As

Fink writes: "... in these late manuscripts, the thought of a primal ego (Ur-Ich) appears,

[it is] an ego that is prior to the distinction, ego -- alter ego, being an ego that first allows

the plural to break forth from itself" ("Die Spätphilosophie Husserls," ed. cit., p. 113).

This ego, as we shall see, expresses the original unity of individual egos before their

objectification as enduring entities located in successive (objective) time.

 Notes
528

NOTES TO CHAPTER I: 'THE ACCOUNT OF THE CARTESIAN MEDITATIONS'

1. Intimately involved with Prof. Carr's position is the notion that

phenomenology never argues or demonstrates. It only describes. Prof. Carr, thus, writes

concerning the objection that Husserl commits a petitio principii, "Such an objection

would be pertinent only if Husserl were constructing an argument. Since it seems to be

wrong to construe Husserl as advancing an argument (indeed, as conceived by Husserl,

phenomenology never argues), I cannot agree that this objection is valid" ("Comments of

Prof. Mensch's paper, 'Intersubjectivity and the Constitution of time'," Halifax, Nova

Scotia, 1981). To this, we must say that the notion that phenomenology never argues,

when literally applied to Husserl's works, is inaccurate. No reader of Husserl can fail to

acknowledge or appreciate his often subtle and involved argumentation -- in particular

with regard to his presentation of the "theory of the reduction."

This leads us

to observe that, according to Husserl, a theory is distinguished from mere description by

its use of logical inference and, hence, argumentation. As opposed to being a "mere

collection" of descriptive truths, a theory is a logical unity of these, one which attempts

to deduce certain given truths from other more basic ones. Now, to deny

phenomenology the status of a theory is, for Husserl, to deny from the outset its claim to

be a "rigorous science." Indeed, it is to deny per se its status as a science. This follows,

for as Husserl writes: "The essential unity of the truths of a science is a unity of

explanation. But all explanation points to a theory and ends in the knowledge of the

basic laws, the principles of the explanation" (LU, Tüb. ed., I, 233). This means that

"scientific knowledge is, as such, grounded knowledge (Erkenntnis aus dem Grund). To

know the ground of something is to see the necessity for its being the way it is" (Ibid., I,

231). Granting this, to say that phenomenology cannot argue or deduce is to say that it
 Notes
529

has no explanatory power at all. It is to assert that it can never achieve the status of a

science.

Far from

being in such a position, constitutive phenomenology is essentially concerned with

explanation. As we noted in our Introduction, constitution is the process of grounding.

To account for something by means of its constitution is, thus, to attempt to give an

account "aus dem Grund." The goal of this account is that of seeing "the necessity" for

the constituted object's "being the way it is." "Necessity," here, refers to the basic "laws"

and "principles" which govern the constitution of entities. Correspondingly, "Erkenntnis

aus dem Grund" refers to a knowledge of the grounds of such constitution. What are the

stages of the constitutive process which must be gone through if an entity of a certain

type is to become intuitively present? What are the laws and principles governing the

ordering of such stages? This inquiry is phenomenological insofar as these grounds are

to be made intuitively evident. It also can be described as a phenomenology of reason

insofar as it attempts to uncover the "rational motivations" for our judgments. Such

motivations are termed "rational" to the point that they spring from the laws of evidence.

We implicitly follow such laws whenever we distinguish rational from irrational

assertions by weighing the evidence for their respective claims. Husserl holds that this

evidence is constituted through our constitution of entities -- i.e., the objects with which

our judgments must agree. Thus, a phenomenological account of the laws of evidence --

Husserl's "phenomenology of reason" -- is also an account of the constitution of the

entities answering to such evidence. Husserl, accordingly, makes the following claim: A

complete "phenomenology of reason" is equivalent to "constitutive phenomenology."

Each, in fact, coincides with "phenomenology in general" -- i.e., phenomenology

considered as a science (See Ideen I, Biemel ed., p. 380).

 Notes
530

With this, we

can see why Husserl's commission of a petitio principii is fatal to his account of the

constitution of Others. Such a logical error would be of relatively minor importance if,

indeed, Husserl were compiling a simple list of descriptive facts. What he is attempting,

however, is an "indubitable transcendental explication (zweifellose tranzendentale

Auslegung.") The petitio, in violating the rules for such an explication, robs the account

of its explanatory, scientific character. More specifically, the petitio assumes the

presence, on the level of the ground, of a thesis which, as something to be grounded, is

supposed to be present only at a higher level. It, thus, violates "the basic laws, the

principles" of the constitution of that evidence which is supposed to validate my

judgment regarding the Other.

2. This doctrine first appears in the Logical Investigations. There is,

according to Husserl, a fundamental fact of cognitive experience: "The fact, namely, that

all thinking and knowing is directed to states of affairs whose unity relative to a

multiplicity of actual or possible acts of thought is a 'unity in multiplicity' and is,

therefore, of an ideal character" (LU, Halle ed., II, 9). Granting this, we have to explain

"how the same experience can have a content in a twofold manner, how next to its

inherent actual content, there should and can dwell an ideal, intentional content" (Ibid.,

II, 16). The latter is the object's content regarded as a sense -- i.e., as a unity in the

multiplicity of the actual experiences we can have of it. As in the Cartesian Meditations,

its presence to consciousness is described as an "ideal-being-in" consciousness. See also

LU, Tüb. ed., I, 171, 175f, II/1, 94f.

3. We shall, throughout this book, follow Husserl's usage in equating sense

(Sinn) and meaning (Bedeutung). Our reasons are essentially the same as Husserl's:
 Notes
531

"Meaning and sense count as synonymous for us. On the one hand, it is, precisely with

respect to this concept, very convenient to have parallel terms which one can alternately

use especially in investigations like the previous ones where it is precisely the sense of

the term, meaning, which is under investigation. On the other hand, something else

comes into consideration, namely the deeply rooted practice of using both words as

equivalent" (LU, Tüb. ed., II/1, 52-3).

4. We cannot, for this reason, agree with Schutz's criticism of the "second

epoché" -- the epoché which, for Husserl, brings us to the primary level of constitution.

According to Schutz, the performance of this epoché eliminates not just the sense of

"objective, worldly existing Others," but also the data required for the constitution of this

sense. If we grant this, the primary level is not genuinely primary with respect to Others;

it does not contain elements which, while individually lacking the sense, "Others,"

constitute this sense by coming together. At this point, the sense, "Others," must itself

be considered as a non-constituted, primary datum of experience. This follows since it

has no lower level constitutive basis. Here, if we still accept the theory of constitution,

according to which the more primitive level constitutes the less primitive, there is no

more primitive level than that on which the sense of Others first appears. The epoché

which attempts to suspend this sense, thus, overreaches itself. Indeed, insofar as it

attempts to pass beyond the genuinely primary level, it leaves us with nothing at all.

This criticism, however, follows only if we agree with Schutz that there cannot exist data

for the sense, "Others," without this sense itself being present. See Schutz, "The Problem

of Transcendental Intersubjectivity ...," ed. cit., pp. 59f, 83).

5. Schutz embraces this conclusion in the following words: "It is to be surmised that

intersubjectivity is not a problem of constitution which can be solved within the

 Notes
532

transcendental sphere, but is rather a datum of the life-world. It is the fundamental

ontological category of human existence in the world and therefore of all

philosophical anthropology. As long as man is born of woman, intersubjectivity

and the we-relationship will be the foundation for all other categories of human

existence. The possibility of reflection on the self, discovery of the ego, capacity

for performing any epoché ... are founded on the primal experience of the we-

relationship" ("The Problem of Transcendental Intersubjectivity ..." ed. cit., p. 82).

What this implies with regard to Schutz's own position is that sociology and not

egology (in the Husserlian sense) is the primary philosophy.

6. We agree with Quentin Laurer when he writes: "There is ... justification to

Husserl's contention that there is here an approach to the problematic of existence. In

explicating the 'sense' of the Other, which is already contained implicitly in the very

conception of an objectivity which must be equally valid for all possible subjects, the

theory of intersubjectivity recognizes that the Other must be a 'real' subject, if objectivity

itself is to have any 'sense' at all" (Phenomenology, its Genesis and Prospect, New York,

1965, p. 159). As already noted, David Carr disagrees with this. He claims that the

"task" of such an explication does not involve the question "whether the Other exists as

such" ("The 'Fifth Meditation' ..." ed. cit., p. 19). Such disagreement is all the more

surprising since he himself points out that transcendence is a function "of possible acts

implied in any actual one" -- i.e., any actual act. Thus, if, as he says, there is a

transcendence in which the object is "not only irreducible to any particular acts of mine"

but "is also not reducible to all possible acts of mine," whence does this transcendence

spring from? It cannot arise as a function of the possibilities implicit in my actual acts.

As a function of possibilities which surpass my own, it must refer to the "possible acts"
 Notes
533

implied in an actual act which is not my own. It implies, in other words, the act of an

actually existing Other.

7. The fact that givenness can no longer be ascribed to consciousness'

receptivity to a transcendental affection "exhibits," according to Fink, "the productive

character of transcendental intentionality." He writes: "The mental ["innerworldly"]

intention is essentially receptive; it is performed with an understanding of itself as an

approach to a being in itself that is independent of it. ... When we no longer interpret

transcendental life as receptive, its special character still remains undetermined. It is the

constitutive interpretation of it that first exhibits it as creation (als Kreation). No matter

how difficult and doctrinaire the determination of the essence of constitution as

productive creation might sound, at least its opposition is thereby indicated to the

receptive character of the worldly-factual (mental) life of experience, a life which fosters

the notion of being in itself" ("Die phänomenologische Philosophie Edmund Husserls in

der gengenwärtigen Kritik," Studien zur Phänomenologie 1930-39, Pheaenomenologica,

No. 21, The Hague, 1966, p. 143). Fink's use of the word, Kreation, is especially

significant. When asked by the editors of Kant Studien to review this piece, Husserl

wrote for its "Preface": "... I have thoroughly gone through this article and I am

delighted to be able to say that there is not a sentence within it that I do not make my

own, that I could not expressly acknowledge as my own conclusion" (Studien zur Phän.,

ed. cit., p. viii).

8. Ricoeur puts this in terms of sense and presence. Constitutive activity is

not limited to making sense out of some given presence. The "fullness" of perceived

presence which a constituted sense embodies is itself to be considered the work of

constitutive activity. Thus, if we say that actual perceptual presence is the sign that some
 Notes
534

actuality is given to us, the constitution of this presence is the constitution of its

givenness. In Ricoeur's words, "... one last gap still remains to be filled in between what

we shall henceforth call the 'sense' of the noema and actuality. ... Transcendental

phenomenology aspires to integrate into the noema its own relation to the object, i.e., its

'fullness,' which completes the constitution of the whole noema. ... To constitute

actuality is to refuse to leave its 'presence' outside the 'sense' of the world" ("Introduction

to Ideas I," Husserl: An Analysis of his Phenomenology, trans. E.G. Ballard and L.E.

Embree, Northwest Studies in Phenomenology and Existential Phenomenology,

Evanston, 1967, p. 23). Another way of putting this is to say that the inclusion of

presence in sense makes the constitution of sense the constitution of actuality, once we

identify actuality with sense filled presence or, what is the same, with sense as including

presence.

9. For Fink this means that there is no ultimate "heteronomy" between "sensuous

hyle" and "intentional form," -- i.e., between sensuous data and the interpretive

acts of consciousness. He writes: "Even the hyle, which at first is presented as a

non-intentional moment of the act is constituted along with the intentional form of

the total act itself in the depths of the intentional self-constitution of

phenomenological time, a self-constitution that does not occur through acts" ("Die

Phänomenologische Phil. E. Husserls ...," ed. cit., p. 146).

10. De Boer, here, echoes Fink's position. Speaking of the noema (the

objective sense of an entity), Fink writes: "If the psychological noema is the sense of an

actual intentionality, a sense that we distinguish from the being itself to which it refers,

then, in opposition to this, the transcendental noema is the being itself. ... The

psychological noema refers to an object which is independent of it, an object that

 Notes
535

manifests and identifies itself in the noema. The transcendental noema cannot ... refer to

an object beyond itself that is independent of it; it is the entity (Seiendes) itself" ("Die

Phänomenologische Phil. Ed. Husserls ...," ed. cit., p. 132-3).

11. For further references in the Krisis to this absolute subjectivity which

objectifies itself in a plurality of human subjects see Ibid., pp. 115f, 1554. See also A V

10, Nov. 5, 1931, pp. 20f, 23f; early references to the same subjectivity include F I 22,

Nov. 1917, pp. 21ff, 37ff. This subjectivity, as we shall see, is that of the "primal ego"

referred to by Fink in footnote 9 of the Introduction.

NOTES TO CHAPTER II: ' THE GROUNDING OF THE THING AND THE EGO'

1. The second pagination, indicated by "F.", will be that of Fink's typescript. This

text, we note, is of particular interest since it is annotated by Husserl. He also

wrote a number of Beilagen for it which have been transcribed by Guy Kirkhoven

at Louvain. Husserl, thus, appears to have taken an active, collaborative part in its

composition.

2. Husserl's position can be illustrated by an analogy with our experience in

art gallery. A finite number of colors are used in the paintings, yet each is different. It is

the ordering of the colors on the canvas which makes this so. It makes the colors into

colors of this one painting rather than another.

 Notes
536

3. Investigation III of the LU is largely devoted to this synthetic, "material"

logic. For a summary of the LU's doctrine on this topic, see The Question of Being in

Husserl's Logical Investigations, ed. cit., pp. 66f, 100f.

4. The thought that is explicitly logical is termed by Husserl "categorial"

thought. It directs itself to the apprehension of states of affairs (Sachverhalte). It

actively explicates the formal relations existing bewteen individually perceivable objects

or features thereof. The claim that the phenomenology of the constitution of being

coincides with the phenomenology of reason (i.e., of categorical thought) signifies, then,

that the forms of unification which are the explicit themes of such thought are implicitly

present in our positing of our world. Categorical thought, in other words, simply makes

explicit -- makes an object of reflection -- the formal structures of our pre-reflective

positing.

5. We emphasize this point because it is often ignored. Prof. Carr writes, for

example, "That the actual process by which we recognize the other person might

be 'circular' in some sense -- e.g., involve reciprocally justifying hypotheses or the

like -- seems to me not objectionable as such -- it might just be an accurate

description of how it works" ("Comments," Halifax, N.S., 1981). Our position is

that, given the tie between rationality and positing, this circular, conscious process

would not "work" at all -- i.e., result in an actual positing recognition. As we shall

see, this holds even when we accept Husserl's claim that actual conscious life is not

necessarily logical. Husserl's remarks to this effect do not undermine the

correlativity of rationality and positing, but rather emphasize the "presumptive"

quality of both.
 Notes
537

6. In the Investigations, the prescriptive role of logic -- both formal and

material -- extends to the actual occurrence of contents in consciousness. Husserl writes:

"It is, accordingly, at once clear how far the logical laws and, in the first instance, the

ideal laws of 'authentic' thinking also claim a psychological meaning and also regulate

the course of factual mental events. Each genuine 'pure' law, which expresses a

compatibility or incompatibility grounded in the nature of particular species, limits, when

it relates to a species of mentally realizable contents, the empirical possibilities of

psychological (phenomenological) coexistence and succession. What is seen to be

incompatible in specie cannot be united or made compatible in empirical instances (LU,

Tüb. ed., II/2, 198). The assertion of this passage is that the logical laws necessarily

have a field of applicability. In the Ideen, howver, there is only the assertion of a

conditional necessity. Its position, as we shall see, is: if the course of factual mental

events is to result in the constitution of an objective world, then the logical laws must

apply to our factual perceptual contents.

7. See Kern, Husserl and Kant, ed. cit., pp. 288ff; also Eduard Marbach, Das

Problem des Ich in der Phänomenologie Husserls, Phaenomenologica, No. 59, The

Hague, 1974, pp. 303ff. Marbach goes so far as to assert that the non-constituted "'pure

ego' ... does not acutally deserve the title of 'ego'" (Ibid., p. 338). In other words, " ... as

a concept of an ego, it must be rejected" (Ibid., 339).

8. The notion of the ego as a constituted (or "founded") unity occurs in the

Logical Investigations (1900-01). The Phenomenology of Internal Time Consciousness

(1893-1917) analyzes in detail the ego's temporal constitution. In Ideen II, written

between 1912 and 1924, the constituted ego reappears under the title of the "personal

ego." This personal ego is a theme of Husserl's writings till the end of his career in the
 Notes
538

late 1930's. With respect to the pure, non-constituted ego, its concept is extensively

developed in Ideen I (1913). It is also present in Ideen II and in a number of manuscripts

of the 1920's. In the last decade of Husserl's life, it becomes the subject of an thorough

analysis. The analysis concerns its non-constituted nature as a "nunc stans." Here, it

appears as a pre-objective, pre-temporally constituted "anonymous ego." Our fifth

chapter will consider in detail this final development of its notion.

9. There is a certain ambiguity with regard to the reference of this passage. Does it

refer to the ego of habitualities or to the pure, non-constituted, singular subject?

Both, as we shall see, require a unity in the posited world for their self-

maintenance.

10. This doctrine first appears in the lectures on internal time consciousness.

See Ph. d. i.Z., Boehm ed., pp. 91-93).

11. This statement will have to be modified when we come to speak of the

"anonymity" of the pure ego.

12. The exact nature of our experience of this non-enduring ego will be the subject of

Chapter V where we will consider Husserl's description of the pure ego as a pre-

temporal, pre-objective "nunc stans."

13. These examples are from the visual estimate of distance. Corresponding examples

can be taken from the auditory, olfactory and even tactile senses. Thus, a series of

sounds increasing in volume is taken as approaching the "here," so also a series of

progressively stronger odors of some substance. We also have the perspectival

 Notes
539

series of tactile sensations -- e.g., those of the muscular effort of focusing our eyes

as objects approach the "here," even those of the "straining" to hear as a sound

diminishes. All of these temporally ordered series play their part in our actual

estimations of distance.

14. The passage in Ideen I (p. 202, Biemel ed.) on which Held in his book (p.

127) bases this interpretation concerns not the pure ego, but rather the personal ego. The

former, as we have stressed, is abstracted from all experiences. The latter, as an ego

made up of acts, is constituted by the experiences whose connections form these acts.

Now, what is called a Kantian idea, in the passage which Held cites, is the stream of

experiences considered as a totality. Given, as Husserl says, that "the stream of

experiences is an infinite unity" -- i.e., continues without end -- no finite series of

reflectively directed perceptions can grasp it as a whole (See Ideen I, Biemel ed., p. 200).

The thought of it as a unified totality, like the corresponding thought of the world which

is constituted from the stream, is, thus, that of an infinite, Kantian idea. As we have

quoted Husserl, the former thought is that of the personal, as opposed to the pure, ego.

See above, .

15. Marbach's rejection of the pure ego is a rejection of the ego "which cannot

be constituted as a personal ego in Husserl's sense ..." (Das Problem ..., ed. cit., p. 338).

It is, in other words, a rejection of the pure in favor of the personal ego. The difficulty

with Marbach's position is that he tends to identify the personal ego with the idea of the

pure ego which occurs through re-presentation. This second form of availability of the

pure ego -- i.e., its availability in idea -- is, however, not the personal ego. The personal

ego, absolutely considered, is a Kantian idea; Kantian ideas involve the notion of a

progressive advance in the determination of an entity. But the idea of the pure ego, given
 Notes
540

that this ego always remains perfectly identical, does not involve any such notion of

progressive advance. The pure ego, as a non-perspectival unity, does not admit of being

"more closely" determined. What this signifies is that the personal ego, qua Kantian

idea, is in contradiction to the pure ego only when we (mistakenly) take it as the idea of

the latter. But this is not Husserl's position.

16. These remarks will turn out to have a positive significance when we consider

Husserl's use of the phenomenological reduction to bracket the temporal

environment of the ego. The resulting pure now will become an essential

conception in his attempt to provide a pre-individual ground for the intersubjective

harmony.

NOTES TO CHAPTER III: 'FACTICITY AND INTERSUBJECTIVITY'

1. Apart from sensibility, this synthetic action is limited to the purely logical

employment of thought. The "pure reason" which engages in this employment attempts

to synthesize all the concepts of the understanding into one interrelated whole. In Kant's

words, its attempt is "to combine all the acts of the understanding, in respect to every

object, into an absolute whole" ("Kritik d. r. V.," B 383; Kant's Schriften, III, 253). The

result of this attempt is "metaphysics" with its various propositions and systems of pure

thought.

2. We, thus, do not just have the possibility of different worlds, but also the

possibility of one world varying or passing over into another. In Husserl's words,

"Transcendental phenomenology, as a pure doctrine of the essence of consciousness,

 Notes
541

leaves many possibilitites open ... According to transcendental phenomenology, there

exists not only different possibilities [of different natures or worlds] but also the

possibility that factually different 'natures pass over into one another,' the possibility that

factually, in the unity of a factual consciousness, there (intuitively) appears for a period

of time a sensible nature of one sensible form and then again a sensible nature of another

sensible form, the possibility that, by intervals, an exact and then a vague nature or world

constitute themselves as different times, the possibility that there does not exist for

consciousness, once and forever afterwards, a nature which is one and continually self-

identical" ("Beilage XX," 1908, EP I, Boehm ed., p. 392).

3. Thus, Husserl to be consistent must assert that the "ontic unity" or being of

the ego is something acquired, i.e., temporally constituted. He writes, for example, "The

ego is itself constituted as a temporal unity. It is, as a lasting and remaining ego, an

already acquired (and, in constant acquisition, continually acquired) ontical unity" (Ms. C

17, Sept. 20-22, 1931; HA XV, Kern ed., p. 348). The nature of this constitution will

be a subject of Chapter V.

4. As Husserl writes, expressing this view: "The presentation of the world

(Weltvorstellung) is not a presentation among my presentations. It is a universal

movement (Bewegung) and a synthesis in this movement of all my presentations; it is a

synthesis of such a kind that everything which is presented goes together, as being

mutually valid, in the unity of a world which is the correlate of the constantly becoming

and already accomplished unity of all my presentations, the presentations which I have,

had, and will have" (Ms. K III 6, p. 111, Autumn, 1934).

 Notes
542

5. We are in agreement with Fink as to the answer to his questions. The absolute or

ultimate subjectivity is, he writes, "... a primal life which is neither one nor many,

neither factual nor essential; rather it is the ultimate ground of all these

distinctions: a transcendental primal life which turns itself into a plurality ..." See

note 1 to our Introduction.

6. It will also follow when we make the reverse reduction and, instead of abstracting

temporal relations, abstract the experiential contents which the latter order -- this

to bring out the pure form of time.

NOTES TO CHAPTER IV: 'A FIRST SOLUTION TO THE PROBLEM OF

INTERSUBJECTIVITY'

1. Ludwig Landgrabe expresses this in terms of the distinction between being

itself and beings. Husserl's later phenomenology takes the stance that "... metaphysics ...

is in need of a new beginning, a new foundation. ... Accordingly, the sense of the

phenomenological method is to be conceived as the question concerning the origin of

each thing which is given to us as a being ..." ("Die Bedeutung der phanomenologischen

Methode fur die Neubegrunding der Metaphysik," Proceedings of the Tenth International

Congress of Philosophy, eds. E. W. Beth, H. J. Pos, and J. H. A. Hollak, Amsterdam,

1949, p. 1219). For Landgrabe, the result of this radical inquiry into the origin or ground

of every individual being is an awareness of the distinction between being and individual

beings. The being of the ground, the being which is ultimately giving, cannot be

interpreted in terms of the individual beings -- including human beings -- which it

grounds. As he expresses this insight: "Being, itself, however, is not a being but rather
 Notes
543

that which allows us, at any given time, to say of the beings, the 'things,' 'it exists' and 'it

is such and such'" (Ibid., p. 1220).

2. In Husserl's technical terminology, the contradiction is one between the

"associative temporalization" which first results in the ego as a temporal center and

the "acts" of the already constituted, "central" ego.

3. "The Founding of Dilthey's Hermeneutic in Husserl's Transcendental

Phenomenology," Proceedings of the 16th Annual Meeting of the Husserl Circle,

Toronto, 1984, p. 21).

NOTES TO CHAPTER V: THE TEMPORAL DIMENSION OF SUBJECTIVE LIFE

1. As Husserl describes this: "In streaming, taken as stationary, the

[temporal] stream constitutes itself. 'Stationary' signifies being constantly (Ständigsein)

as a 'process' -- the process of primal temporalization ..." (Ms. C 7 I, p. 31, June-July

1931).

2. Husserl came to this conclusion relatively early. Thus, we read in the

1905 lectures on time consciousness, "We can no longer speak of a time of the ultimately

constituting consciousness" (Zur Phän. d. Inneren Zeitbewusstseins, Boehm ed., p. 78).

This means, as Husserl adds in an appendix, "Subjective time constitutes itself in an

absolutely timeless consciousness which is not an object" (Ibid., Beilage VI, p. 112).
 Notes
544

3. This remark occurs in the passage: "If, in the primal original stream, we

perform a reduction to the things which are primal-original, if we suspend all re-

presentations (Vergegenwärtigungen), then we take things only as what they themselves

are in the original present. Or rather: I do this. But this 'I do,' itself pertains to this. I

see the 'I do' in a reflection, then I see this reflection through a [further] reflection. I am

always ahead of myself. I meditate on myself and, as such, am already, in fact,

reflecting." The reflecting ego is the functioning ego; it is not the ego which has been

fixed in objective time by such functioning. In Husserl's words, "Functioning, I only

exist as this reflecting ego [present] in the reflecting acts, while the things previously

apprehended along with the previous ego are objective, are that upon which I function"

(Ms. A V 5, p. 4, Jan. 1933). See also Ms. C III 3, pp. 2-3, Nov. 1931.

4. As Klaus Held puts this point: "The fact that the ego cannot grasp itself in

its active functioning -- its anonymity -- and the fact that it streams away from itself are

one and the same. Could the ego which possesses the intentions which it, itself,

performs, the ego which is the welling up of such intentions, be graspable --

phenomenologically speaking, a non-thought -- then this would signify that it would not,

by its passive streaming, permit the opening up of an original distance in its functioning

present" (Lebendige Gegenwart, Haag, 1966, pp. 128-29). The "non-thought" here is

that of the actively functioning ego being objective to itself by virtue of being fixed in an

objective position of time. So conceived, it would flow with this position into pastness.

It would, thus, never become separate from this position. No original distance between

itself and this position would ever open up; therefore, it would never actually become

objective to itself.
 Notes
545

5. See e.g., Ms. C 2 I, pp. 11-12, Aug. 1931, Ms. B I 22, pp. 16-17, May or Aug.,

1931.

6. Heidegger expresses a similar view when he remarks that "the authentic,

metaphysical questioning about the being of the individual being (Sein des Seienden)"

arises when we consider the problem of nothingness. When we do, "nothingness (das

Nichts) does not remain a vague opposite to the individual being (Seiende), rather it

shows itself as pertaining to its being (Sein)" ("Was ist Metaphysik", Wegmarken,

Frankfurt am Main, 1967, pp. 16-17). For both philosophers, nothingness seems to be a

sign of the ontological difference, i.e., of the fact that being (Sein) is not individual

beings (Seienden).

7. Another expression of the relation between the "absolute" and the

individual ego occurs in Husserl's lectures on Fichte's Menschenheitsideal. Husserl

writes: "... we cognizing humans are individual egos nto which the absolute ego has split

himself ..." (Ms. F I 22, p. 22, Nov. 8-17, 1917). This process results in a plurality of

individual egos, but the absolute ego at their origin remains pre-plural. Thus, " ... this

ego cannot be some individual, human ego. Human subjects are members of the world.

They are, in the idealistic sense, quite mediated formations within subjectivity. ... the

pure or absolute ego is nothing other than the subjectivity in which (according to the

ordered play of accomplishing actions) the phenomenal world first comes to be with all

its human egos" (Ibid., pp. 21-22).

8. The "is" of this last sentence has been marked as inserted by the transcriber.
 Notes
546

9. See Aristotle's Physics, II, ch. 11, 218b 21; Hume's Treatise, I, Part I, Sect.

III; ed. Selby-Bigge, Oxford, 1973, pp. 34-35.

10. It is, thus, not an appeal to a level in which disagreements about worldly

time -- e.g., the Newtonian versus the Einsteinian view of universal simultaneity -- can

occur. Such disagreements are "higher level" because they presuppose the

mathematization of our experience. They also presuppose the existence of Other subjects

and their ability to communicate the results of their experiments. For Husserl, of course,

this is precisely what is at issue. Given his focus, universal time (universale Zeit) must

not, in his texts, be taken on an abstract, theoretical level. It is not to be thought of as the

time which is assumed to be coincident with a universal mathematically conceived space,

a space which may be empty of subjects. It is rather the common time of a humanity

which is in active, ongoing contact with itself. Otherwise put: the focus of Husserl's

problematic is the behavior which we directly encounter and attempt to interpret

according to the schema: if I were in a similar situation, would I behave in a similar

way. For Husserl, all views of worldly time presuppose this schema.

11. Our final chapter will analyze the particulars of this common style.

12. Aquinas expresses this distinction in terms of the observation that I can

know what something is without knowing whether it is. He writes: "I can know, for

example, what is a man or a phoenix and yet not know whether these may exist among

the things of nature. It is, thus, clear that existence (esse) is other than essence or

whatness" (De Ente et Essentia, ch. 4, ed. Rolland-Gosselin, Kain, 1926, p. 34). If they

were the same, then from knowing the what, I could know the whether, i.e., existence

would be included among "those things which are the components of the essence" (Ibid.).
 Notes
547

13. Cf. Aquinas' statement on the essence or nature considered in itself: "It is,

thus, clear that, aboslutely considered, the nature of man abstracts from every sort of

existence (a quolibit esse) ..." (De Ente et Essentia, ch. 3, ed. cit., p. 26). The

corresponding statement by Husserl is: "... the positing and, in the first instance, the

intuitive grasp of an essence implies not the slightest positing of any sort of individual

existence. Pure truths about essence contain not the slightest assertion about facts ..."

(Ideen I, §4, Biemel ed., p. 17). This position can lead to a serious misinterpretation of

Husserl's position. Were we, mistakenly, to equate phenomenology with an examination

of essences, we could conclude from this that phenomenology must be silent about

questions concerning existence and being. This, however, makes unintelligible Husserl's

assertion that "the effort of my phenomenology has always proceeded from the subjective

back to the existent (Seienden)" (Adelgundis Jaegerschmid, "Die Letzten Jahre Edmund

Husserls -- 1936-1938," Stimmen der Zeit, 199, Heft 2, Feb. 1981, p. 134. Entry

recorded March 16-17, 1938). In abstracting from being, one abstracts from the living

present which is the central core of consciousness. In Husserl's words: "One simply

abstracts from being (Sein) and brackets the consciousness in which being first becomes

alive and remains alive (lebendig wird und lebendig bleibt" (Ibid., p. 131, entry recorded

on April 8, 1931). For Husserl, this "ontologism" is a "dangerously deceptive doctrine

(eine ganz gefährliche Irrlehre)," one which misrepresents the purpose of his

phenomenology (See Ibid.).

14. Once again, there is a parallel with Thomas, at least if we follow Etienne

Gilson's interpretation. For Thomas, according to Gilson: "Essences may well represent

the balance sheets of so many already fulfilled essential possibilities, but actual

existences are their very fulfilling, and this is why essences are actually becoming in
 Notes
548

time, despite the fact that a time-transcending knowledge eternally sees them as already

fulfilled. ... Thus, becoming through esse is the road to fully determined being ..."

(Being and Some Philosphers, 2nd ed., Toronto, 1952, pp. 183-84).

15. This sentence continues: "[They are] its modes of understanding or being able to

understand itself." The point of this seems to be that the absolute cannot

objectively grasp itself without its actually becoming an object -- i.e., without its

objectifying itself in time through its functioning.

16. With this, we have an answer to the question: "Are the worldly events of

birth and death transcendental indices for a non-worldly, trans-natural (über-naturliche)

monadic mode of being, indices for a passage to a mode of being which, in principle, is

inaccessible to the methods of worldly knowing?" (Ms. A V 20, Nov. 18, 1934). The

"non-worldly ... monadic mode of being" is the being-now which underlies the monad's

being in the world. The now's inaccessibility to the methods of objective "worldly

knowing" is its objective anonymity. Thus, when Husserl asks, "Is birth ... intuitably

conceivable? Is death an event which can be intuitively realizable ...?", his answer is that

they are "per se, precisely non-conceivable ... The 'evidence' is, so to speak, non-

intuitibility ..." (Ms. C 17 V, p. 17, 1931). What we confront is the evidence of

anonymity. It is the evidence of a passage to the now per se, the now apart from those

temporal distances which permit objective appearing and, hence, conceivability. See

Fink, "Proposal," ed. cit., pp. 67-71, F. 75-80.

17. Reprinted in Philosophical Essays in Memory of Edmund Husserl, ed. M.

Farber, New York, 1968, pp. 324-25.

 Notes
549

18. Whether such possibilities include that of the "revivification" of an

individual life is, of course, not answered here. Certainly, after periods of dreamless

sleep, revivification does occur. On awakening, what has been retained from the past is

once again made alive -- i.e., made part of our ongoing life -- by being added to by the

living present. The fact that during such sleep the retained remains and yet is not

consciously grasped indicates that retention, per se, is not a conscious act. Consciousness

occurs with the revivification of the retained. If we follow this line of thought, we can

sketch out the possibility of something akin to a doctrine of personal immortality. The

crucial element of this doctrine is given by Aquinas when he writes: "... once the soul

has acquired its individual being by having been made the form of some particular body,

that being always remains individuated" (De Ente et Essentia, ch. 5, ed. cit., p. 39). For

both Husserl and Aquinas, having a body is having a unique, individuating "here." It is

the possession of a worldly place which can never be simultaneously occupied by

something else. Phenomenologically, it signifies the uniqueness of the individual's

experience in his "here" -- i.e., its never being equivalent to the Other's experience in the

"there." If, after death, the experience which corresponds to the "here" could be

revivified, then, from a phenomenological perspective, a "resurrection of the body"

would occur and, with this, we would have a personal immortality. This, of course, is

only specualtion. In the manuscript A VI 14, written in 1930, Husserl denies the analogy

between waking from "periodic sleep" and waking from the "absolute sleep" of death

(See p. 45). No reason, however, is given for this denial. If it is not his final position,

then we have at least some phenomenological basis for the late Husserl's personal beliefs

which became increasingly religious and, apparently, included a belief in resurrection.

See "Die letzten Jahre ...," ed. cit., p. 129.

 Notes
550

NOTES TO CHAPTER VI: 'A SECOND SOLUTION TO THE PROBLEM OF

INTERSUBJECTIVITY'

1. Husserl's notion of "reconstruction" is implicit in this regard of both the

ground and the grounded. He writes that the world "is already constructed; its

construction becomes actually visible (sichlich) in reconstruction." Here, we view its

higher levels in terms of the lower and then view the lower in terms of the higher. In this

way, we reconstruct the constitutive processes which must be assumed if the higher

levels are to be given. Thus, for Husserl, the task of reconstruction is "to reconstruct the

pre-temporal present from the starting point of the accomplished world in which we

constantly have the present and in which we ourselves are present in the same way as

Others; now, upwardly directed, to reconstruct from this [pre-temporal present] the

primordial time of the temporal modalities, to reconstruct primordial experience and the

experiential world; from this (an abstraction since such primordiality is unthinkable

alone), through the consideration of empathy in its levels of validity, to reconstruct the

origin of Others and that of myself as one among many within the objective world ..."

(Ms. K III 4, p. 77, 1936). This procedure, we note, is to be sharply distinguished from

that of Kant's regressive method. The latter ends in what is nouminal and, hence, in

processes which we cannot make visible to ourselves. For Husserl, however, the

"construction" (or constitution) uncovered by reconstruction "becomes actually visible."

Here, the viewing of the higher in terms of the lower is meant to serve as a

"transcendental clue" in our intuitively examining the nature of each. So understood,

Husserl's project is our own. Our last chapter followed him in the reconstruction and

examination of "the pre-temporal present." Our present chapter will concern itself with

empathy and the reconstruction of the simultaneous presents which self and Others

involve.
 Notes
551

2. As Klaus Held expresses this conclusion: "According to this basic

experience of itself [as functioning], the ultimately functioning transcendental ego must

leave open the possibility of another, unique 'I function.' The peculiar kind of uniqueness

of my 'I function' accordingly excludes solipsism. As inherently factual and anonymous,

it points to the possibility of co-presents which are just as factual and anonymous"

(Lebendige Gegenwart, ed. cit., p. 163). For Held, the leading idea here is that the

anonymity of my present makes my self-experience include a level which is prior to any

thought of a singular subject or a corresponding plurality. So regarded, "it [i.e., the ego

experienced in its present anonymity] can so little be thought of as an objective unity

and, in general, so little be primarily thought of as a unity that, for the most original

understanding of the nunc stans, the thought of an inner plurality, at very least, is

essentially equivalent to the thought of its unity." This inner plurality is "the pre-

temporal, unavoidably anonymous connection between ego and ego" (Ibid., p. 169). It is

the thought of plurality before it is, via objectification, distinguished from unity -- i.e.,

from the unity of one of the members of the plurality.

3. On this level, Husserl's position approaches that of Hegel. We have two

requirements for the co-present now. First, it must be other than the original, pre-

temporal now. Second, it must be identical with it. This second requirement focuses on

the fact that the co-present now must be present. Its actual givenness is its existence in

the constantly present, pre-temporal now. The two conditions are satisfied by seeing co-

presence as the result of a Hegelian "negation of a negation." At the point of its original

welling up, the momentary now is identical with the pre-temporal now. Departing into

pastness, it is not identical. Co-presence arises when, in re-presentation, we negate this

negation in a manner which still preserves it. As Hegel describes the logical structure of
 Notes
552

this process: "First, I point out the Now and it is aserted to be the truth. I [then] point it

out, however, as something that has been ... But, thirdly, ... I then supersede, cancel, its

having been ... [I] negate thereby the negation of the now and return, thereby, to the first

position: that [the] Now is" (Phenomenology of Mind, tr. Baille, London, 1966, p. 156).

This "return" is, in fact, a recall of the now to presence.

4. The corollary of this is that the stream of impressional moments, each with

its distinct "hyletic" content, is itself constituted. As Husserl observes, the hyletic

content "affects" the subject, it "provokes" (Reize übt) it "and motivates the subject to

activity" -- i.e., the activity of objective synthesis. Yet this does not mean that hyletic

content is prior to all constitutive activity. Rather, "the 'hyletic' is constituted as what is

first 'objective' in the immanent temporal form" (Ms. E III 2, p. 45, 1930's). It is

constituted as the content of an impressional moment which appears to stream towards

the original present, pass through it, and stream away. So taken, it is "objective" in the

sense of being placed in the temporal field which stands over and against the subject's

nowness. What we have, here, is a constitution of both acts and content, i.e., a

temporalization "in which all the acts proceeding from the ego and the affections

proceeding towards it passively constitute themselves as immanently temporal" (Ms. C

17 IV, p. 1, 1930). With this, we also have the constitution of the ego understood as the

"middle point" -- i.e., as the active center -- of its temporally extended life. We do not,

however, have the constitution of the source of temporalization. For Husserl, then, "we

must make the distinction: On the one side, we have the temporal stream of

consciousness and the trancendental ego of acts which is related to this temporality ... on

the other side, we have the primal ground of temporalization, the primal ego ..." (Ms. C 2

I, p. 12, Aug. 1931). As the ground of temporalization, the primal ego is the ground of

the hyletic. This means that it is the ground of its "provoking" the central ego since it
 Notes
553

makes hyletic content appear to approach the ego from the future and enter into its acts

which along with such content depart into pastness. Since, however, the source of such

temporalization is not in time, we cannot speak of it as having a future or a past. What

we can say is that the hyletic, through its temporalization, displays or exhibits (auslegt)

what the primal ego pre-temporally contains. As such, the hyletic appears as the

impressional content of the transcendental ego of acts and, indeed, appears as something

"given" -- a datum -- provoking its acts.

5. Each subject can therefore say: "I bear (trage) in myself all Others as

selves which are appresented or can be appresented and I bear my [objective] self in the

same way" (Ms. C III 3, p. 33). As Husserl elsewhere put this, "... we have ... monads

which are implied in me as an ego, which are implied in my monadic being and which,

indeed, are implied in every monadic being. Each is a monad among monads, and each

is an ego which of itself inherently implies (von sich aus in sich impliziert) the monadic

world; and as such, each is implied in me, implied in the one primal ego" (Ms. A V 20,

pp. 13-14, 1934). Expressed in terms of co-presence and appresentation, this becomes

the assertion: "As an absolute, streamingly existent, concrete present, I possess [the

Other's] present as a co-present. I possess him as manifesting himself as himself within

me. But I also possess him as manifesting himself as possessing me in my self-

manifestation in him, possessing me in his living present as constituted in the manner of

a co-present" (Ms. C III 3, p. 33). The point of this is that in acknowledging the Other as

having a living present (the very same present which allows me to function as a "concrete

present"), I also acknowledge the complete reciprocity of our relations. Each ego, qua

primal ego, i.e., qua the living present, takes up the standpoint from which all Others are

appresented as co-presents.
 Notes
554

6. As in note 3, we can express Husserl's position in terms of a Hegelian

negation of a negation. The assertion that memory and empathy are the same is negated

when subjects are individualized. This assertion that memory is not empathy is itself

negated when I assert that the object of my empathy -- the Other himself -- is the object

of the Other's self-remembering. As before, we have what Hegel calls a determinate

negation -- i.e., a negation which overcomes yet preserves what it negates. Thus, the last

assertion does not imply that empathy and memory are the same in the sense that the

object of my empathy is the object of my self-remembering. This would imply that self

and Others are not distinct -- the levels of our first assertion. The last assertion

presupposes their distinction as prserved yet overcome by a self-transcending act of

empathy.

7. This double appresentation corresponds to Husserl's double pairing which we

described on pp. . The first pairing links my bodily presence in the "here" and

the "there." The second links its appresented presence in the "there" with the

Other who is considered as actually occupying the appresented standpoint. As our

text shows, this second pairing is also accomplished by an appresentation.

8. Thus, Husserl follows the sentence we quoted with the question: "But

what kind of potentiality (Potentialität) is this?" Strictly speaking, "the totality of human

possibilities" is not a potentiality since it is not directed to a specific actualization.

NOTES TO CHAPTER VII: 'TEMPORALITY AND TELEOLOGY'

 Notes
555

1. If we accept this, then we have to say with Husserl: "Human being is a

teleological being and an ought-to-be (Sein-sollen), and this teleology prevails in each

and every egological action and purpose ..." (Ms. K III 6, p. 253, Aug. 5-8, 1936).

2. We are referring to Husserl's copy of Karl Kerlsbach's 2nd ed. of the

Critique, Leibzig, 1878, which is listed under the Husserl Archive library signature, BQ

217. See pp. 50-55, 58-63, 114-123, 146-47 of this copy.

3. As Husserl writes, "We can temporally divide, in a certain manner separate into

pieces, a concretely filled duration. This, however, does not mean that these

pieces of time can be considered as concrete individuals or that they can be filled

durations of independent, concrete individuals" (Ms. E III 2, pp. 2-3, 1921). In

other words, since past moments imply those that follow them, there are no

independent retentions of such moments along the vertical.

4. If our present retentions were concrete individuals (see note 3), they could never

be brought into a real coincidence. Our viewing them together would be the

viewing of a collection. Our present retentions, however, are not individuals, but

rather constituents of appearing individuals. As such, their non-independence

points to their pre-individuality.

5. Thus, for Husserl, "If I direct myself to a tone, I am attentively settling

into [my retentions'] 'vertical intentionality.'" He immediately adds: "The enduring tone

is present, constantly extended in its enduring, when I continuously experience a unity

embracing the primary sensation -- i.e., the sensation of the present tonal now -- [and] the

primary memories of the series of expired tone points ..." (HA X, 82). This unity is
 Notes
556

caused by the merging of the tonal contents which, itself, is caused by the merging of the

retentions bearing these contents. The ultimate factor, here, is simply that of the

temporal dependence of the moments that are retained. This is the first cause of the

merging.

6. Only that which is constituted through their diagonal intentionality is in

extended time. The latter depart into pastness, the constituting phenomena do not per se

depart. See Ms. C 3 III, p. 39, March 1931.

7. This means that the moment which is posited as objectively "now" is not

the nunc stans. To reverse this, we can say that to posit the nunc stans as an objective

moment in time is always to lose it. Its objective positing loses it because it assumes its

temporal transcendence, and such transcendence is the departure of the posited into the

"over againstness: of past time. Thus, insofar as it is its limit, the objectively posited

now is part of the continuum of past time. The nunc stans, however, constantly

transcends this continuum insofar as it remains pre-objectively now.

8. This is the case for the eidh or forms as conceived by both Plato and

Aristotle. For Plato, the forms present "a kind of being which always the same,

uncreated and indestructible" (Timaeus, 52a). They possess "the very actuality of to be"

-- ousia auth tou einai (Phaedo, 78d). For Aristotle, the actuality of the forms is

characterized as ousia energeia-- a "being at work" that acts to determine empirical

reality by informing its matter. Aristotle, of course, does equate the formal and final

causes of processes, thus making the form into a goal. As causative, however, such goals

are already achieved. An actual tree actually manifests the form which was the goal of

its development. It is as an already achieved goal -- i.e., as a full grown tree -- that it acts
 Notes
557

as a formal and final cause of a process -- the process which, through its seeds, will bring

about another tree bearing its form. For Husserl, however, the goal of a teleological

process does not have to be actually given to be effective. See Ms. F I 14, p. 45, June

1911.

9. To take an example from ordinary life, let us say that a person wants to become a

marathon runner. He is not yet a marathon runner. This goal is a not-yet, i.e., a

moment in his future. Yet, if it is seriously held, it determines his present. It

causes the person to train. In determining his actual process of training, it

progressively realizes itself in the form of actual marathon runner. As indicated,

by our last footnote, this determination does not depend upon there ever having

been a marathon runner before this person set this as his goal.

10. In this vein, Husserl writes, "Phenomenologically considered, only the

[present] now point is characterized as an actual now, i.e., as a new now ..." ( HA X,

Boehm ed., p. 65).

11. The ultimate basis of this position is that time is responsible for all

egoogical intentionalities insofar as it is what first brings about "the new awakening

(Erwachen) of egos as genuine egos, as centers of acts in relation to a surrounding

world ..." (Ms. E III 5, Sept. 1933; HA XV, Kern ed., 595).

12. Aristotle's remarks about the indefinability of individual things pertain to

this "worldly" sense. He writes: "But when we come to the concrete thing, e.g., this

circle, i.e., one of the individual circles, ... of these there is no definition, but they are

known only by the aid of intuitive thinking or of perception" (Meta., VII, ch. 10, 1036a,
 Notes
558

2-6, in The Basic Works of Aristotle, ed. R. McKeon, New York, 1941, p. 807; see also

Meta., 1039a, 15-20). Perception with its intuitive thinking grasps, we can say, the

internal horizons of a thing. The worldly sense of a thing, however, corresponds to its

external horizons. The latter, in linking it to other similar objects give us the "universal"

terms from which we can compose its definition.

13. Such a reinterpretation at once gives the logical law a field of applicability

in the posited, objective world.

14. This teleological relation is also put by Husserl in the following set of

rhetorical questions: "Can reason begin of end in constituted existence? Can the

constitutive process which it has ultimately, spontaneously set in motion be in vain? ...

Can it be otherwise than that reason is super-temporally and all-temporally at work,

presupposed as a disposition or plan (Anlage) [and] as its actualization, presupposed as

the coming to be of real rationality ...?" (Ms. E III 4, p. 30). Here, reason is "at work" in

the same super-temporal, all-temporal sense that time-constitution itself is. The latter is

what is inherently synthetic and, hence, rational.

15. Cf. Heidegger's remarks in "Vom Wesen des Grundes," Wegmarken,

Frankfurt am Main, 1967, pp. 68-69. Commenting on the principle, "reason is why this

exists rather than another," he asserts, "Freedom is the origin of the principle of reason."

For Heidegger, however, there is no definite telos of reason.

16. Thus, for Husserl, first we have "the absolute in its temporal modalities

temporalizing itself in the absolute streaming ..." Then, "within this," we have "the levels

of the absolute: the absolute as the absolute, 'human' totality of monads, the absolute as
 Notes
559

reason and [as existing] in the temporalization of reason, [then] the development of the

rational monadic totality, history in a meaningful sense" (Ms. C I, Sept. 21-22, 1934; HA

XV, 669). All of this, for Husserl, is part of the absolute's progressive temporal

manifestation.

17. "Das Gottesprobleme in der Spatphilosophie Edmund Husserls,"

Philosophiches Jahrbuch der Gores-Gesellschaft, vol. 67, 1959, p. 131. The intensity of

Husserl's theological interests in the 1930's is attested to by the conversations recorded by

Adelgundis Jaegerschmid. She reports that while Husserl claims that phenomenology

"ultimately leads to God, the absolute," he also asserts, "I am attempting ... to reach God

without God" (Gespräche mit Edmund Husserl 1931-36," Stimmen der Zeit, 199, Heft 1,

Jan. 1981, p. 49, p. 56, remarks recorded on April 28, 1931 and Dec. 1935). The

"without God" refers to the practice of the phenomenological epoché on the received

tradition. It involves the withholding of judgment on the assertion of the Bible and on

the "proofs, methods and positions" employed by confessional theology. See also

Jaegerschmid, "Die letzten Jahre Edmund Husserls (1936-1938)," Stimmen der Zeit, 199,

Heft 2, Feb. 1981, for a continuation of her account.

18. Whether or not this is the only way God understands himself is not at issue

here. Husserl's point concerns the fact that God cannot grasp himself as actually

objective without being so -- i.e., without objectifying himself in time through his

functioning.

19. The correlate of this progressive manifestation of God in the "formations

of consciousness" is humanity's own progressive development. In Husserl's words:

"There corresponds to this a continuous, graded process of advancement in the

 Notes
560

development of humanity, i.e., of human beings in their development towards the ideal"

(Ms. F I 22, p. 38). As Husserl also puts this: "To write the history of this ego [i.e.,

God], of this absolute intelligence is, therefore, to write the history of the necessary

teleology in which the world as a phenomenal world comes to advancing creation, to its

creation within this intelligence" (Ibid., p. 22). Because this manifestation of God is our

own development, indeed, because we are "egos into which the absolute ego has split

himself, we can, through an intuitive absorption (schauende Vertiefung) into what

pertains to the pure essence of the ego, of subjectivity, reconstruct the necessary

sequence of the teleological process in which the whole world and ultimately we

ourselves ... have been formed ..." (Ibid.) For Husserl in the 1930's, such

"reconstruction" involves proceeding from the "pre-temporal present" to the "primordial

time of the temporal modalities," and from thence to "primordial experience and the

experiential world," ending with the attempt "to reconstruct the origin of Others and that

of myself as one among many with the objective world" (See note 1, ch. VI). The

"intuitive absorption into what pertains to the pure essence of the ego" is taken as an

investigation of its pre-temporal present.

20. In the language of the appendix, this means that such development is

similar to that of the other "rigorous sciences" which begin with fruitful, if unclarified

insights and whose "whole development is determined as if from a guiding star" (Ms. F I

22, p. 61). For Husserl, Fichte's main insight is "to conceive the world as a teleological

product of the absolute ego ..." (Ibid., p. 23). We should, however, note that certain

features of this view are present in the earlier manuscript F. I 14. Thus, this manuscript

also conceives of God as a telos of human development and as pluralizing himself in

subjects -- though it expresses these positions more tentatively.

 Notes
561

21. "The total absolute is, in advance (im voraus), always what it is; and it

already exists in advance, existing in this manner on all levels, identical simply as what

ought to be in this tendentiousness [of monadic development]" (Ms. C 17 V, p. 30,

1931).

22. This presence involves the absolute's self-understanding. Referring to "the

single, 'absolute substance,'" Husserl claims: "All essential necessities [e.g., those of the

"formations of consciousness"] are moments of his fact, modes of his functioning in

relation to himself -- his modes of understanding or being able to understand himself"

(Ms. E III 9, Nov. 5, 1931; HA XV, 386.)

23. Thus, as Strasser points out, Husserl distinguishes his conception of God

from that of the Aristotelean metaphysics. For the latter, God is the "maker" -- i.e., the

totality of all the informing forms. It, thus, conceives of God "according to the schema

of the full grown tree being the final limit of development" (Ms. E III 10, p. 18). For

Husserl, however, God is never practically realizable. See Strasser, op. cit., p. 142.

24. On this level, Husserl's position parallels that of Aquinas. Commenting on

the statement, "Socrates in the market-place is other than himself at home," Aquinas

writes that the assertion follows because Socrates varies "according to his existence

(esse), i.e., according the principle that accepts the prior and the posterior" (In I Sent. d.

19, q. 2, a. 2, Solutio; ed. P. Mandonnet, Paris, 1929, I, 470). This means that the

otherness of his esse is the otherness of the now in which he finds himself. The fact that

this now is constantly departing into pastness and, thus, requires constant replacement

distinguishes his esse from that of God. The latter's now is an "eternal now." His now

does not depart, which means that "... the divine being is per se stationary (stans) ..."
 Notes
562

(Ibid., d. 11, q. 1, a. 1, Solut., ed. cit., I, 63). In distinction to finite beings, God,

Aquinas asserts, has none of his nowness or existence outside of himself. Speaking of

the "perfection of the divine existence (esse)," he writes: "That of which there is nothing

outside of itself is perfect" -- i.e., complete. "But our existence has something outside of

itself, for it lacks that which presently precedes it and what is future. But in the divine

existence there is nothing past or future. Hence his total existence is perfect; and because

of this, existence more properly pertains to him than others" (Ibid., d. 8, q. 1, a. 1. Solut.,

ed. cit., I, 195). The contingency of a finite being, follows once we admit that esse can

be understood "either simply or relatively; simply according to the present time,

relatively according to the times that are other than the present" (In I Perihermeneias,

lect. 5, no. 22). Thus, our existence outside of the present -- our existence "according to

a past or future time" -- is only existence in a relative sense (Ibid., lect. 3, no. 13). Our

esse simpliciter or actual existence is existence in the present. Since our present does

depart into pastness, making us "outside" of ourselves, this esse or existence is contingent

on our present being renewed. This renewal, we may note, is not something

predetermined by our essence. For Aquinas, our essence, as other than our existence, is

other than our present nowness. Thus, presence or existence in a given time is an

accidental, as opposed to an essential, predicate of a finite entity: "Moreover, existence

in this or that time is an accidental predicate" (In X Metaph., lect. 3, no. 1982).

How far Husserl was aware of this parallel is not known. He is, however,

reported as saying: "In spite of everything, I once believed -- today , it is more than

belief, today it is the knowledge -- that precisely my phenomenology, and only this, is

the philosophy which the church can use -- this, because it goes together with Thomisim

and extends Thomistic philosophy" ("Gespräche," ed. cit., p. 55, entry recorded on Sept.

4, 1935). This claim of an advance may refer to Husserl's belief that he has provided a

phenomenological justification for Aquinas' metaphysical position.

 Notes
563

25. The analogy, here, is with calculus. When x = 1, x 2-1/x-1 is not defined;

yet we can conceive of a definite limit of this function as x approaches 1.

26. These examples are, of course, Kantian. It is as a positive ideal, rather

than as a negative prohibition, that tolerance defines a morality that is different from the

Kantian. Its positive position is, perhaps, closest to the humanism (humanitas) of the

ancient world as exemplified by the statement: "I am human, I deem nothing human

foreign to me." Such humanism, it must be stressed, is not to be interpreted in the

manner of Heidegger's "Brief über den 'Humanismus'." It is not something that demands

that we already have a fixed idea of what human being is.

27. Intolerance also includes racism. Its attitude is exemplified in the

following snatch of dialogue from Huckleberry Finn. Huck: It warn't the grounding --

that didn't keep us back but a little. We blowed out a cylinder head. Aunt Sally: Good

gracious! anybody hurt? Huck: No'm. Killed a nigger. Aunt Sally: Well, it's lucky;

because sometimes people do get hurt. Mark Twain, Huckleberry Finn, ch. 32; Signet

Classics, CQ 953, New York, 1977, p. 216.

28. For Husserl, the "... problematic ... of the irrationality of the transcendal

fact which expresses itself in the constitution of the factual world and factual mental life"

is "metaphysics in a new sense" (EP I, 1923-24, ed. R. Boehm, HA VII, Haag, 1956, p.

188, note). Since radical evil is part of such irrationality, involving as it does a regress of

reason, the question of its ground can be called "metaphysical" in this new sense. What

is new about this metaphysics is its confrontation with irrationality, i.e., with the

possibility of humanity's factual collapse.

 Notes
564

29. Theologically speaking, this transcendence of the absolute is God's

transcendence. Hence, the very possibility of radical evil is an argument against Deupre's

position that Husserl envisages "a God who is identical with transcendental subjectivity"

(See above, ). If this were the case, then radical evil would not result in what we

called "the withdrawal of God." This leads us to note the theodicy implicit in Husserl's

position. The question of how God could permit evil to exist is, here, reduced to that of

how He could permit the existence of finitude. In other words, as long as we accept the

necessity of the distinction between God and creatures, we have to accept the possibility

of evil.

30. There is a certain analogy between this state and Heidegger's notion of

"insistence." The latter involves a "forgetting of the totality of being (des Seiendem in

Ganzen)" and an insistence that the part which we already know is this totality. See

"Vom Wesen der Wahrheit," Wegmarken, Frankfurt am Main, 1967, p. 91). A much

darker, psychologocial description of the empty repetition we are pointing to is given by

Shakespeare in Macbeth's speech: "To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow, creeps

in this petty pace from day to day to the last syllable of recorded time ..." ( Macbeth, Act

V, scene v., 11. 18-20). Macbeth has, through intolerance, emptied out his horizons.